Mishandling Iran

I love the innernut. The Husband made me read a great piece in today's Wall Street Journal (on paper) this morning, and I wanted to post it but I can't pay for all the online access I need and use. Anyway, thanks to the innernut in general and to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in particular, even non-subscribers can still read it.

Khobar Towers
by Louis J. Freeh, FBI director 1993-2001

Ten years ago this Sunday, acting under direct orders from senior Iranian government leaders, the Saudi Hezbollah detonated a 25,000-pound TNT bomb that killed 19 U.S. airmen in their dormitory at Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The blast wave destroyed Building 131 and grievously wounded hundreds of additional Air Force personnel. It also killed an unknown number of Saudi civilians in a nearby park.

The 19 Americans murdered were members of the 4404th Wing, who were risking their lives to enforce the no-fly zone over southern Iraq. This was a U.N.-mandated mission after the 1991 Gulf War to stop Saddam Hussein from killing his Shiite people. The Khobar victims, along with the courageous families and friends who will mourn them this weekend in Washington, deserve our respect and honor. More importantly, they must be remembered, because American justice has still been denied.

.... The aftermath of the Khobar bombing is just one example of how successive U.S. governments have mishandled Iran. On June 25, 1996, President Clinton declared that "no stone would be left unturned" to find the bombers and bring them to "justice." Within hours, teams of FBI agents, and forensic and technical personnel, were en route to Khobar. The president told the Saudis and the 19 victims' families that I was responsible for the case. This assignment became very personal and solemn for me, as it meant that I was the one who dealt directly with the victims' survivors. These disciplined military families asked only one thing of me and their country: "Please find out who did this to our sons, husbands, brothers and fathers and bring them to justice."

It soon became clear that Mr. Clinton and his national security adviser, Sandy Berger, had no interest in confronting the fact that Iran had blown up the Towers. This is astounding, considering that the Saudi Security Service had arrested six of the bombers after the attack. As FBI agents sifted through the remains of Building 131 in 115-degree heat, the bombers admitted they had been trained by the Iranian external security service (IRGC) in the Beka Valley, and received their passports at the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, along with $250,000 cash for the operation from IRGC Gen. Ahmad Sharifi.

We later learned that senior members of the Iranian government, including Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), and the Spiritual Leader's office had selected Khobar as their target and commissioned the Saudi Hezbollah to carry out the operation. The Saudi police told us that FBI agents had to interview the bombers in custody in order to make our case. To make this happen, however, the U.S. president would need to personally make a request to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah....

It's a very suspenseful read for an opinion piece, kind of like a "whodunnit," only more like Who-Didn't-Do-What.

Asolutely Read It All, and if you end up cursing former President Clinton, know that you're not the only one. It's UFB that I voted for him twice, but in those days I was asleep at the wheel and completely dependent on Liberal GroupThink to tell me what I "thought." BTW, if you know anyone still asleep, this first-person-account of Clinton's foreign policy in the Middle East might just do the trick to wake them up. Pass it on.

Comments

[soccerdad]

I voted for Clinton once. Nothing wrong with that; though my father in law won't forget. He was, after all, running against President George HW Bush and James "F--- the Jews" Baker.