<%@LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%> WorldTribune.com: Mobile — An embittered Freeman withdraws without answering questions about his foreign ties

An embittered Freeman withdraws without answering questions about his foreign ties

Thursday, March 12, 2009   E-Mail this story   Free Headline Alerts

WASHINGTON — A former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia has been forced to resign from his new post as chairman of a key U.S. intelligence organization but used the ocasion to deliver a blistering public attack on what he termed the "pro-Israel lobby".

Charles Freeman said he would not accept the post of chairman of the National Intelligence Council after allegations of conflict of interest with both China and Saudi Arabia had been leveled. Freeman said the criticism, led by members of Congress, would dog him throughout his tenure at the intelligence agency, which drafts the National Intelligence Estimate, meant to reflect the assessment of the entire 16-member community.

"I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office," Freeman wrote. "The effort to smear me and to destroy my credibility would instead continue."

In a statement on March 10, Freeman, president of the Saudi-funded Middle East Policy Council and a board member for the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), did not respond to questions raised in the House and Senate that his statements against Israel and advocacy for China would hamper his objectivity.

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."

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