Louis J. Freeh Lecture
I just got back from seeing Louis J. Freeh, former FBI director and author of My FBI, speak here on campus. He was certainly the most interesting and informative speaker at a lecture have attended at the University of Delaware (second being Peter Bergen/Lee Hamilton).
Freeh started out by detailing his experiences on the book tour, especially The Daily Show. I saw that interview, which his teenage sons feared, and thought he was excellent. He then outlined Islamic terror against the United States starting with the Iran hostage situation, calling the response "tepid." With the 1983 Beruit incident, the United States had cemented a pattern of running from terrorists rather then confronting them. He criticized the Clinton Administration for the response to the Iraqi plot to assasinate George H. W. Bush, because the missile arrived in Baghdad at 1 AM local time, thus only harming the overnight cleaning staff. The 1998 retaliation for the al Qaeda embassy bombings was to cruise missile several places, including a "factory in Sudan that was manufacturing either WMDs or deodorant. We still don't know."
He also mentioned the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, but the pre-9/11 event he talked about most in terms of the history of US terror policy was the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. Freeh and, according to him, others working on the case were shocked that the story had disappeared from the news within 48 hours. The incident should have been a wakeup call for the nation, and Freeh belives it was "possibly the only opportunity to prevent 9/11." He did mention the capture and detainment of Ramzi Yosef, one of the two masterminds of the 1993 WTC bombing. When he was finally captured in 1999, and flown from a military base to a detention center in New York City by helicopter, one of those with him pointed out that the Towers were still there. Yosef replied that the plan was to topple one into the other, and that he regretted that he did not have enough money to lace the explosives with chemical or biological weapons, so as to kill people even without the conventional explosives being effective.
Freeh gave an anecdote which I feel demonstrates that the standard operating procedures of the US Government err on the side of human rights. The instance was that of Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali, one of the 1998 Kenya embassy bombings, and who decided to not be a suicide bomber at the last minute. The agents who took him into custody had to call the Deptartment to Justice to ensure that he could be read his Miranda rights even though the country where he was found offered no such guarantees.
The one incident he focused upon was the No-Fly Zone terrorism that killed 19 airmen in 1996. President Clinton advised Freeh to pursue the investigation, but when Freeh was told by Saudi police that the only way to talk to the suspects was to get FBI agents into the Saudi prisons, which required the permission of the Crown Prince, now King Abdullah, and Clinton barely asked. Freeh ended up going through former President Bush, who asked, and the access was immediately granted.
From there, Freeh opened the floor to questions, and one of the most interesting one was about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whom Freeh called "the other 1993 WTC mastermind," who went on to be one of the 9/11 architects and his 1993-2001 whereabouts. Freeh said that KSM lived in Manila, and had plotted to explode many American aircraft simultaneously over the Philippines, as well as planning a plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II on his visit to the Philippines.
Another question was about the cooperation was about the FBI-CIA relationship. Freeh said that "cooperation was very good," considering 'the wall' of seperation and other "legal impediments." Freeh, in answering another question, was very hopeful of democracy in Iraq, which is the thing that Tehran fears most.
I really enjoyed his lecture, as he is a very excellent speaker who is plainspoken. I also found him very approachable afterwards.
Freeh started out by detailing his experiences on the book tour, especially The Daily Show. I saw that interview, which his teenage sons feared, and thought he was excellent. He then outlined Islamic terror against the United States starting with the Iran hostage situation, calling the response "tepid." With the 1983 Beruit incident, the United States had cemented a pattern of running from terrorists rather then confronting them. He criticized the Clinton Administration for the response to the Iraqi plot to assasinate George H. W. Bush, because the missile arrived in Baghdad at 1 AM local time, thus only harming the overnight cleaning staff. The 1998 retaliation for the al Qaeda embassy bombings was to cruise missile several places, including a "factory in Sudan that was manufacturing either WMDs or deodorant. We still don't know."
He also mentioned the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, but the pre-9/11 event he talked about most in terms of the history of US terror policy was the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. Freeh and, according to him, others working on the case were shocked that the story had disappeared from the news within 48 hours. The incident should have been a wakeup call for the nation, and Freeh belives it was "possibly the only opportunity to prevent 9/11." He did mention the capture and detainment of Ramzi Yosef, one of the two masterminds of the 1993 WTC bombing. When he was finally captured in 1999, and flown from a military base to a detention center in New York City by helicopter, one of those with him pointed out that the Towers were still there. Yosef replied that the plan was to topple one into the other, and that he regretted that he did not have enough money to lace the explosives with chemical or biological weapons, so as to kill people even without the conventional explosives being effective.
Freeh gave an anecdote which I feel demonstrates that the standard operating procedures of the US Government err on the side of human rights. The instance was that of Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali, one of the 1998 Kenya embassy bombings, and who decided to not be a suicide bomber at the last minute. The agents who took him into custody had to call the Deptartment to Justice to ensure that he could be read his Miranda rights even though the country where he was found offered no such guarantees.
The one incident he focused upon was the No-Fly Zone terrorism that killed 19 airmen in 1996. President Clinton advised Freeh to pursue the investigation, but when Freeh was told by Saudi police that the only way to talk to the suspects was to get FBI agents into the Saudi prisons, which required the permission of the Crown Prince, now King Abdullah, and Clinton barely asked. Freeh ended up going through former President Bush, who asked, and the access was immediately granted.
From there, Freeh opened the floor to questions, and one of the most interesting one was about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whom Freeh called "the other 1993 WTC mastermind," who went on to be one of the 9/11 architects and his 1993-2001 whereabouts. Freeh said that KSM lived in Manila, and had plotted to explode many American aircraft simultaneously over the Philippines, as well as planning a plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II on his visit to the Philippines.
Another question was about the cooperation was about the FBI-CIA relationship. Freeh said that "cooperation was very good," considering 'the wall' of seperation and other "legal impediments." Freeh, in answering another question, was very hopeful of democracy in Iraq, which is the thing that Tehran fears most.
I really enjoyed his lecture, as he is a very excellent speaker who is plainspoken. I also found him very approachable afterwards.
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