Instead, Freeman blamed the pro-Israel community for
a decision by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to order
an
intensive background check. An NIC chairman does not require congressional
approval.
"I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function
effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people
with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a
foreign country," Freeman said.
Freeman, in an online statement, said the pro-Israel lobby battles those "who dispute the wisdom of its views" and fights for "the exclusion of any
and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than
those that it favors."
"The tactics of the Israel lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and
indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the
willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an
utter disregard for the truth," Freeman said.
Freeman's withdrawal took place several hours after a Senate hearing in
which National Intelligence director Dennis Blair was warned against his
choice for NIC chairman. Blair told the Senate Armed Services Committee that
Freeman was the best person to head NIC, and that his positions at either
the Middle East Policy Council or the CNOOC. — where he earned a total of $94,000 a year — did not constitute
lobbying.
"The inspector-general is taking a closer look at those associations
that is normally done with a federal employee," Blair said. "Neither I nor
anybody who works for me makes policy. We inform it."
The Obama administration refused to comment on Blair's appointment of
Freeman. But administration sources said senior Democrats in Congress warned
Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff of President Barack Obama, that Freeman
could embarrass the White House during his tenure.
"I don't have anything to add from what Admiral Blair discussed
yesterday in accepting Mr. Freeman's decision that his nomination not
proceed and that he regretted it," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs
said.
Republicans and Democrats welcomed Freeman's resignation. They said they
hoped President Barack Obama would draw lessons from the affair.
"We learned from eight years of the Bush administration that
intelligence cannot be cherry-picked," Rep. Steve Israel, a New York
Democrat, said. "It cannot be colored by opinion or even the appearance of
conflict."
Pro-Israeli supporters said the White House and Congress were bombarded
by telephone calls, e-mails and faxes regarding Freeman's links to Beijing
and Riyad. They said such Jewish organizations as the Jewish Institute for
National Security Affairs, regarded as close to the Defense Department, and
the Zionist Organization of America were warned that Freeman had for years
sat on the board of a Chinese company that helped finance Sudanese President
Omar Bashir, now charged with war crimes by the International Criminal
Court.
Two House members, Rep. Shelly Berkley and Rep. Mark Kirk, circulated a
letter that demanded an investigation by the inspector-general of Blair's
office. Another letter drafted by Israel, the New York Democrat, called for
a probe into Freeman's links with China.
"The co-directors of ZOA's Government Relations office in Washington,
Josh London and Dan Pollak, lobbied hard every day, educating members of
Congress about Freeman's anti-Israel, anti-American record, urging them to
take up the issue with the Obama administration and to sign on to the
Berkeley-Kirk letter," ZOA president Morton Klein said on March 11. "I
personally phoned numerous Jewish communal and Congressional leaders
repeatedly in recent days on the subject and was successful in getting
Congressmen to add their name to the letter as well pledge to make calls to
the White House."
