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Editor's
Note:
The
Saudi-American Forum
wishes to thank
Louis J. Freeh for
permission to share
this important
contribution to the
dialogue on US-Saudi
relations with you.
This essay was
originally published
in The
Wall Street Journal
On-Line.
Nineteen
American heroes still
await American
justice.
Responding to last
week's terrorist
attacks in Riyadh,
President Bush
declared that
"the United
States will find the
killers, and they will
learn the meaning of
American
justice." This is
a president who is
serious about fighting
and winning the war on
terrorism. The
liberation of Iraq and
the continued effort
to bring al Qaeda to
justice are all the
proof anyone should
need.
On
May 1, our
commander in
chief stood on
the flight
deck of the
USS Abraham
Lincoln--where
he rightly
should
stand--and
reiterated the
Bush doctrine:
"Any
person
involved in
committing or
planning
terrorist
attacks
against the
American
people becomes
an enemy of
this country,
and a target
of American
justice."
As if in
response,
Ayatollah
Ahmad Jannati,
the leader of
Iran's
powerful
Guardian
Council, had
this to say in
a sermon the
next day:
"The
Iraqi people
have reached
the conclusion
that they have
no option but
to launch an
uprising and
resort to
martyrdom
operations to
expel the
United States
from
Iraq."
Impervious
to the new order
against terrorism are
the terrorists who
maintain their regime
in Tehran. While the
horrific bombing
scenes were still
smoldering and
littered with their
victims in Riyadh,
Iranian President
Mohammad Khatami
received a rousing
welcome in Beirut,
where he vowed to
support
"resistance"
against Israel and
called the U.S.
occupation of Iraq a
"great
mistake" and a
"dangerous
game." Meanwhile,
Mr. Khatami's
atomic-energy chief
denied that Iran had a
nuclear weapons
program but told the
U.N. that his country
was not willing to
submit to tougher
inspections.
Make
no mistake, Iran's
terrorist leaders are
well versed in
"martyrdom
operations"
against Americans.
Hezbollah, the
exclusive terrorist
agent of the Islamic
Republic of Iran, has
killed more Americans
than any other group
besides al Qaeda. In
1982, Hezbollah
carried out the
suicide bombing in
Beirut that killed 241
U.S. Marines. In 1985,
Hezbollah brutally
murdered a young U.S.
Navy diver aboard
their hijacked TWA
Flight 847 in Lebanon
and dumped his body on
the tarmac. Into the
1990s Hezbollah
terrorists kidnapped,
tortured and murdered
several American
military and civilian
officers as well as
other Westerners.
On
June 25, 1996, Iran
again attacked America
at Dhahran, Saudi
Arabia, exploding a
huge truck bomb that
devastated Khobar
Towers and murdered 19
U.S. airmen as they
rested in their
dormitory. These young
heroes spent every day
risking their lives
enforcing the no-fly
zone over southern
Iraq; that is,
protecting Iraqi
Shiites from their own
murderous tyrant. When
I visited this
horrific scene soon
after the attack, I
watched dozens of
dedicated FBI agents
combing through the
wreckage in 120-degree
heat, reverently
handling the human
remains of our brave
young men. More than
400 of our Air Force
men and women were
wounded in this
well-planned attack,
and I was humbled by
their courage and
spirit. I later met
with the families of
our lost Khobar heroes
and promised that we
would do whatever was
necessary to bring
these terrorists to
American justice. The
courage and dignity
these wonderful
families have
consistently
exemplified has been
one of the most
powerful experiences
of my 26 years of
public service.
The
FBI's investigation of
the Khobar attack was
extraordinarily
persistent, indeed
relentless. Our fallen
heroes and their
families deserve
nothing less. Working
in close cooperation
with the White House,
State Department, CIA
and Department of
Defense, I made a
series of trips to
Saudi Arabia beginning
in 1996. FBI agents
opened an office in
Riyadh and aligned
themselves closely
with the Mabaheth, the
kingdom's
antiterrorist police.
Over the course of our
investigation the
evidence became clear
that while the attack
was staged by Saudi
Hezbollah members, the
entire operation was
planned, funded and
coordinated by Iran's
security services, the
IRGC and MOIS, acting
on orders from the
highest levels of the
regime in Tehran.
In
order to return an
indictment and bring
these terrorists to
American justice, it
became essential that
FBI agents be
permitted to interview
several of the
participating
Hezbollah terrorists
who were detained in
Saudi Arabia. The
purpose of the
interviews was to
confirm--with usable,
co-conspirator
testimonial
evidence--the Iranian
complicity that Saudi
Ambassador Prince
Bandar bin Sultan and
the Mabaheth had
already relayed to us.
(For the record, the
FBI's investigation
only succeeded because
of the real
cooperation provided
by Prince Bandar and
our colleagues in the
Mabaheth.) FBI agents
had never before been
permitted to interview
firsthand Saudis
detained in the
kingdom.
Unfortunately,
the White House was
unable or unwilling to
help the FBI gain
access to these
critical witnesses.
The only direction
from the Clinton
administration
regarding Iran was to
order the FBI to stop
photographing and
fingerprinting
official Iranian
delegations entering
the U.S. because it
was adversely
impacting our
"relationship"
with Tehran. We had
argued that the MOIS
was using these groups
to infiltrate its
agents into the U.S.
After
months of
inaction, I
finally
turned to
the former
President
Bush, who
immediately
interceded
with Crown
Prince
Abdullah on
the FBI's
behalf. Mr.
Bush
personally
asked the
Saudis to
let the FBI
do
one-on-one
interviews
of the
detained
Khobar
bombers. The
Saudis
immediately
acceded.
After Mr.
Bush's
Saturday
meeting with
the Crown
Prince in
Washington,
Ambassador
Wyche
Fowler, Dale
Watson, the
FBI's
excellent
counterterrorism
chief, and I
were
summoned to
a Monday
meeting
where the
crown prince
directed
that the FBI
be given
direct
access to
the Saudi
detainees.
This was the
investigative
breakthrough
for which we
had been
waiting for
several
years.
Mr.
Bush typically
disclaimed any credit
for his critical
intervention but he
earned the gratitude
of many FBI agents and
the Khobar families. I
quickly dispatched the
FBI case agents back
to Saudi Arabia, where
they interviewed,
one-on-one, six of the
Hezbollah members who
actually carried out
the attack. All of
them directly
implicated the IRGC,
MOIS and senior
Iranian government
officials in the
planning and execution
of this attack. Armed
with this evidence,
the FBI recommended a
criminal indictment
that would identify
Iran as the sponsor of
the Khobar bombing.
Finding a problem for
every solution, the
Clinton administration
refused to support a
prosecution.
The
prosecution and
criminal indictment
for these murders had
to wait for a new
administration. In
February 2001, working
with exactly the same
evidence but with a
talented new
prosecutor, James B.
Comey Jr. (now U.S.
attorney for the
Southern District of
New York), Attorney
General John
Ashcroft's personal
intervention, and
White House support,
the case was presented
to a grand jury. On
June 21, 2001, only
four days before some
of the terrorist
charges would have
become barred by the
five-year statute of
limitations, the grand
jury indicted 13
Hezbollah terrorists
for the Khobar attack
and identified Iran as
the sponsor.
Nonetheless,
the terrorists
who murdered
19 U.S. airmen
and wounded
hundreds more
have yet to be
brought to
American
justice.
Whenever U.S.
diplomats hold
talks with
representatives
of Iran's
Islamic
government,
Khobar Towers
should be the
top item on
their agenda.
The arrest and
turnover to
U.S.
authorities of
Ahmad Ibrahim
Al-Mughassil
and Ali Saed
bin Ali Al-Houri,
two of the
indicted
Hezbollah
leaders of the
Khobar attack
believed to be
in Iran,
should be part
of any
"normalization"
discussion.
Furthermore,
access and
accountability
by IRGC, MOIS
and other
senior Iranian
government
leaders for
their
complicity in
the attack
should be
nonnegotiable.
Before
his appointment as the
top U.S. administrator
in Iraq, L. Paul
Bremer chaired the
National Commission on
Terrorism, which
studied the Khobar
attack. The commission
concluded that
"Iran remains the
most active state
supporter of
terrorism. . . . The
IRGC and MOIS have
continued to be
involved in the
planning and execution
of terrorist acts.
They also provide
funding, training,
weapons, logistical
resources, and
guidance to a variety
of terrorist groups,
including Hezbollah,
Hamas, PIJ, and PFLP-GC."
The commission noted
that "in October
1999, President
Clinton officially
requested cooperation
[a letter delivered
through a third-party
government] from Iran
in the investigation
[of the Khobar
bombing]. Thus far,
Iran has not
responded.
International pressure
in the Pan Am 103 case
ultimately succeeded
in getting some degree
of cooperation from
Libya. The United
States government has
not sought similar
multilateral action to
bring pressure on Iran
to cooperate in the
Khobar Towers bombing
investigation."
One
of my last official
acts as FBI director
was to attend a
memorial service at
Arlington National
Cemetery with the 19
stoic Air Force
families with whom I
had become very close.
They all came to my
office to thank the
FBI for keeping faith
with them and
presented me with a
signed plaque. It will
always be for me the
most cherished honor
of my public service.
Yesterday
[May 19] the White
House reiterated
Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld's
recent statement that
al Qaeda leaders are
now conducting their
operations from Iran.
The time to bring that
pressure to bear is
right now, with
Ambassador Bremer and
our armed forces
bringing democracy and
justice to the Iraqi
people next door. This
time the United States
should not just send
Tehran a letter.
American justice for
our 19 Khobar heroes
is long overdue.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Louis
J. Freeh
served
as Director
of the
Federal
Bureau of
Investigation
from 1993 to
2001.
Previously,
Freeh served
as an FBI
Special
Agent from
1975 to 1981
in the New
York City
Field Office
and at FBI
Headquarters
in
Washington,
D.C. In
1981, he
joined the
United
States
Attorney's
Office for
the Southern
District of
New York as
an Assistant
United
States
Attorney.
Subsequently,
he held
positions
there as
Chief of the
Organized
Crime Unit,
Deputy
United
States
Attorney,
and
Associate
United
States
Attorney.
Freeh was born in
Jersey City, New
Jersey. He graduated
Phi Beta Kappa from
Rutgers College in
1971. Director Freeh
received a J.D. degree
from Rutgers Law
School in 1974 and an
LL.M. degree in
criminal law from New
York University Law
School in 1984. He was
a First Lieutenant in
the United States Army
Reserve.
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