Please do tell us more, Newt.
In October of 2000, after entering the Port of Aden off the coast of Yemen, the USS Cole was hit by suicide bomber. The blast killed 17 and injured 35 Americans. O’Neill was sent over to investigate, as head of the FBI team. Accompanying O’Neill to Yemen were over 100 FBI agents, laboratory experts and forensics specialists, as well as FBI Director Louis J. Freeh. From the earliest moments of the investigation, O’Neill was sure Bin Laden was responsible. However, from the start, his efforts to work the case were sabotaged by US ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine. Bodine refused to cooperate in the investigation or to encourage Yemenis to cooperate. Despite repeated death threats against agents, she refused to allow them to carry the type of weapons O’Neill considered adequate. O’Neill reportedly called Louis Freeh in the middle of the night once expressing anxiety about the safety of his men. The clash between O’Neill and Bodine went steadily from bad to worse, peaking when Bodine publicly called O’Neill a liar. Incredibly, Bodine claimed that through her actions, she was merely trying to keep diplomatic relations running smoothly.
But a look at Ms. Bodine’s history suggests a very different motivation. Throughout her career, Barbara Bodine has served primarily under rightwing old boys and in areas where the oil interests of said old boys are being furthered. Under Reagan, she served as Deputy Principle Officer in Baghdad, Iraq. Under Bush, Sr., she served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Kuwait and was there during the Gulf War. She has also worked for Bob Dole, and far more ominously, for Henry Kissinger. So, in 2000 we find her in Yemen, and though a Clinton appointee, impeding the Clinton administration’s efforts to conduct an investigation of a crime of terrorism in which the chief suspect is the son of a Bush family business associate (see http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/biography/bodine.html.
What makes Bodine’s actions toward O'Neill particularly indefensible is that there is credible evidence that she herself was to blame, at least in part, for the Cole disaster. Kie Fallis, a Defense Intelligence Agency counterterrorism analyst, had issued a report before the disaster, warning of the danger of just such an attack in Yemen. As it turned out, the report was suppressed by senior DIA officals, and by Bodine and Gen. Anthony Zinn, who decided to allow the Cole to enter the Port under the lowest grade of secdurity permitted in the Middle East – though they were both aware of the warning. Fallis quit in protest the day after the bombing.
The Clinton administration intervened in the investigation, and an arrangement was made that at least made it possible for agents to question suspects (thanks to Bodine, even this had been impossible before). O’Neill returned to the States for the holidays. By that time, Bush had succeeded in pulling off the theft of the presidency. O’Neill was barred from returning to Yemen to continue his investigation. Shortly after he returned, while attending a seminar in Tampa, O’Neill’s briefcase, which contained some sensitive papers, was stolen. Although the briefcase was found intact shortly afterward, with only a cigar lighter missing, the incident later proved to be something much more than a petty theft, as you shall see.
http://archive.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=7479
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