Diane Foley, the mother of beheaded American journalist James Foley, said she was “embarrassed and appalled” by the Obama administration’s efforts to free her son from the Islamic State, adding she often felt like an “annoyance” to the officials she spoke with.
Foley spoke with CNN about the tragic fate of her son, whose savage beheading was broadcast by Islamic State terrorists last month as a warning for the United States to cease its air campaign in Iraq. And the grieving mother made it clear that her experience with the American government left much to be desired.
“As an American, I was embarrassed and appalled,” she told Anderson Cooper. “I think our efforts to get Jim free were an annoyance. . . . Jim would’ve been saddened. Jim believed until the end that his country would come to their aid.”
Foley detailed the Obama administration’s instructions to her family. “We were asked to not go to the media, to just trust that it would be taken care of,” she said. “We were told we could not raise ransom — that it was illegal, we might be prosecuted.”
“You were told you would actually be prosecuted?” Cooper asked.
“Yes, that was a real possibility — told that many times,” Foley said. “We were told that our government would not exchange prisoners, would not do a military action. So we were just told to trust that he would be freed somehow. And he wasn’t, was he?”
She concluded by calling on the Obama administration to “acknowledge that there are better ways for American citizens to be treated.”
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