Retired Major General Jonathan Scott Gration closed his comments singing Obama’s praises with an anecdote from the bombing of Khobar Towers.
An interesting choice, since the last Democratic president’s response to that terrorist attack was abysmally insufficient. For the second time in two nights, part of the fourth chapter of Voting to Kill comes in handy to correct misinformation about the not-so-distant past:
KHOBAR TOWERS
June 25, 1996, Khobar towers. A bombing killed 19 U.S. airmen at a barracks in Saudi Arabia, wounding about three hundred others. One of the definitive accounts of Elsa Walsh in the May 2001 in The New Yorker.
With F.B.I. help, the Saudis were able to identify the truck chassis used in the bombing and trace it to the purchaser, who acknowledged being part of a cell trained by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
FBI director Louis Freeh on several occasions urged the White House to pressure the Saudis for more cooperation. More than once, Walsh reports, Freeh was frustrated to learn that the president barely mentioned the case in meetings with Saudi leaders.35
Walsh reported that in September 1998, Freeh, angry and losing hope, took the extraordinary step of secretly asking former president George H. W. Bush to intercede with the Saudi royal family. Acting without Clinton’s knowledge, Bush made the request, and the Saudis began to provide new information, which indeed pointed to Iran.
On November 9, 1998, Freeh finally got what he had been seeking for two and a half years. From behind a one-way mirror, F.B.I. agents watched and listened as Saudi law-enforcement officers posed the Bureau’s two hundred and twelve questions to eight suspects. The suspects confirmed their involvement in the bombing and described how the Iranians had ordered, supported, and financed the attack.
In late 1998, Walsh reports, Freeh went to national security adviser Sandy Berger to tell him that it appeared the FBI had enough evidence to indict several suspects.Almost before Freeh could finish, Berger demanded, “Who else knows about this?” Did the press know? This was the last question that Freeh expected from a national-security adviser. Not many people knew, Freeh replied. The information was very closely held. Berger also questioned some of the statements linking the bombing to the Iranian government.
“That’s just hearsay,” Berger said.
“No, Sandy,” Freeh replied. “It’s testimony of a co-conspirator in furtherance of a conspiracy.” Berger, Freeh later thought, was not a national-security adviser; he was a public-relations hack, interested in how something would play in the press. After more than two years, Freeh had concluded that the Administration did not really want to resolve the Khobar bombing.
The 9/11 Commission reported, the Clinton administration struck back by unmasking Iranian intelligence officers around the world. Undisclosed until 2004, Operation Sapphire took place in 1997. Though the bombers who struck the Khobar Towers barracks were mostly Saudis, U.S. investigators determined that Iranian intelligence officials had trained and organized the plotters. A former U.S. official claimed Iran was intimidated enough by the U.S. counterspy operation that it stopped targeting Americans after the bombing.
Thus the Clinton doctrine: If you train Saudis to kill 19 American servicemen, we will force you to take early retirement.
Khobar Towers is an example of how Democrats don’t respond to terrorists — not a moment that the party should look back on with pride.