Saturday, June 24, 2006
Louis Freeh reviews the Khobar towers events
The former Director of the FBI writes an opinion column for the Wall Street Journal.
You can read it here without registering for the WSJ's website...
You can read it here without registering for the WSJ's website...
As the 10 year anniversary of the Khobar Towers bombing approaches, Louis Freeh reviews the issues and how they were handled:
"Although a federal grand jury handed down indictments in June 2001 -- days before I left as FBI director and a week before some of the charges against 14 of the terrorists would have lapsed because of the statute of limitations -- two of the primary leaders of the attack, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Mughassil and Abdel Hussein Mohamed al-Nasser, are living comfortably in Iran with about as much to fear from America as Osama bin Laden had prior to Sept. 11 (to wit, U.S. marshals showing up to serve warrants for their arrests)."
"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.'"
