Powerline
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/016294.php
December 23, 2006
Pants, socks, trailer, trash: The OIG report
Over at Pajamas Media Richard Miniter has posted the OIG Sandy Berger report here. Richard's editorial note on the report focuses on the pertinent questions:
What was role of Omar Bashir, President of the Sudan, and his relationship to Berger and President Clinton during the days when he offered to cooperate in the capture of Osama Bin Laden?
What was in the ten to twenty pages of notes Berger is believed to have taken out of the reviewing room against regulations during his first session?
Who was the person or persons Berger contacted during the numerous “private cell phone calls” he was allowed to make during his active review of the classified documents?
Exactly what was in the documents Berger stole from the archives, some of which he has confessed to destroying?
The list can be extended as one reads the OIG report carefully. We are confident that by releasing this document in this manner we can call upon the networked intelligence of the Web to find within these pages not only more questions, but the beginnings of the answer to the central mystery of this entire incident: “Who was Berger looking to protect from the 9/11 Commission’s inquiry? Was it just himself and his role in our National Security in the Clinton years? Or were there others that the documents would either embarrass or implicate?
Your comments are invited here at Power Line Forum.
JOHN adds: I've read the report; it's generally consistent with what has been in the press over the past year, although it contains Berger's confession in fuller and more dramatic form than I think I've seen reported.
It seems clear that the main focus of Berger's concern was the After-Action Report that was done following the capture of the Millenium Bomber around the beginning of 2000. Here is the main thing that puzzles me about the OIG report: is it possible that Berger was destroying the only copies of these documents? And if not, how could it possibly be worth his while to go to the trouble and risk of destroying them?
In any normal document management system, the documents would be scanned and numbered. Electronic files would be maintained in various locations and no one would work with anything except redundant paper copies. It sounds, however, as though the National Archives may have been working with an antiquated system. When employees there first began to suspect that Berger was stealing documents, they had no easy way to keep track of the documents, so they hand-numbered them sequentially. This later enabled them to prove that documents were missing.
So it's possible, I guess, that the Archives really didn't have duplicates, or, more likely, that duplicates or electronic files existed somewhere but were not easily retrievable.
That's a question I'd like to see whether anyone can shed more light on: were these unique documents, and if not, what benefit could Berger gain by destroying them?
Miniter's on the case. Cool.
WhyTF DO REPUBLICANS SIT ON THEIR FAT INCUMBENT ASSES OVER THIS KIND OF BLATENT, DISGUSTING, TREASONOUS ESCAPE FROM JUSTICE !!!!@#$%^$#@@#
Clicked and bookmarked...44 pages.
"the staff was too intimidated to confront him with the facts of what he appeared to be doing."
Arkancide will do that to you.
Thanks... I will pour over that later tonight.
I would like to know more about the corruption and complicity of the Bush Justice Department in the matter of Berger's prosecution and plea agreement. The corruption of the Bush Justice Department is as brazen as Clinton's, and this could be due to Bush "holding over" too much of the crooked Clinton scum. But even if true, that's a lousy excuse.
Wouldn't Berger's plea agreement have had a provision that he "come clean"? My frequent 'Law and Order' viewings lead me to believe that getting caught in a lie after the fact can nullify a previous plea agreement. Was all of this information in the OIG report known by the "prosecutors" and the judge at the time of Berger's plea agreement? If so, then maybe the Bush Justice Department is even more corrupt than Clinton's.
I never thought that could be possible in a million years..
Oh, yeah, never mind. The one-party system we have would never put this scumbag in a Federal Penitentiary for crimes against the one party gubbmint, would they?
Feh!
Merry Christmas everyone. At least most of us are still free to write our thoughts and opinions on sites like this one...so far...
FMCDH(BITS)
MSNBC reported and stressed that what Berger stole was NOT incriminating to the Clinton Administration. If so, why did he do it?
Just briefly looked over that document, did you catch the quote by Berger on page 19?
Quote as follows:
"I may be stupid, but I am not self destructive".
Page 20.
"I realized I was giving a benign Explanation for what was not benign."
-Berger
bttt
Page 21.
"Mr. Berger said if there was always someone with him, he would not have taken any documents"
This report is a riot. I will bbl.
BJ. Next question.
What was role of Omar Bashir, President of the Sudan, and his relationship to Berger and President Clinton [ -- and the Commission’s Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton]?
"Sudan President Omar al-Bashir [wrote] a letter to Lee Hamilton, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee." The letter offered the Sudan's extensive files on al-Qaeda to the U.S. That was 1997.
Like the entire Clinton Administration, the Congressman just ignored the letter; it was just one more terrorist alert that was missed.
The Commission’s 2004 final report did not mention Sudan’s offers and of course contained no mention of the direct involvement of the Commission’s Vice Chairman in the public version, at least.
This was news to me -- looks like it's the whole damn Rat Party (formerly the traditional, patriotic Democrat Party.)
.
NEVER FORGET
The day after the 9/11 Attacks Pakistani international businessman & Terrorism Expert MONSOUR IJAZ appeared on the FoX News Channel.
IJAZ told the American People that the previous day's terrorist attacks on them could have been prevented if only the CLINTON White House hadn't refused the 3 free offers he had personally brokered with the Sudan during the 1990's to give us our No. 1 Terrorist Enemy OSAMA bin LADEN on a silver platter before his hitting us real hard here at home.
IJAZ then went on to name SANDY BERGER, a former Washington D.C. head lobbyist for Communist China, as the White House point of contact for these CLINTON refusals.
Months later DICK MORRIS, the CLINTONS' personal White House Political Advisor during the mid-1990's, confirmed for the first time anywhere on 'The Judicial Watch Report' National Talk Radio Show that it was BILL CLINTON himself who had personally refused two of these OSAMA bin LADEN offers from the Sudan in 1995 & 1996. The only reason MORRIS couldn't also confirm on the air the year 2000 OSAMA bin LADEN Offer refusal by CLINTON ...was because MORRIS was no longer in the CLINTON White House at that time.
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1117043/posts
Long ago, the CLINTONS actively supported our then No. 1 Terrorist Anti-Freedom Enemy, Communist North Vietnam Dictator HO CHI MINH, during the Vietnam War.
For,
...the Enemy is now within...
...and always has been,
...it seems..???
Signed:.."ALOHA RONNIE" Guyer
Veteran-1st Major Battles for Freedom of the Vietnam War (1965-66) ..&.. Radio Talk Show Caller who asked DICK MORRIS to confirm on the air CLINTON's personal refusing of OSAMA bin LADEN Offers from the Sudan that would have prevented the 9/11 Attacks ahead of time.
(Photos)
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set1
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_collection.htm
NEVER FORGET
.
bump
"Who was the person or persons Berger contacted during the numerous “private cell phone calls” he was allowed to make during his active review of the classified documents?"
I think this is one of the more important questions because not only does it speak to Berger's intent but it should be easy to answer. There must be records. If the phone records exist then someone has them. Hey Woodward, here's a chance for you make like a real journalist instead of a fraud.
This can't be. Berger and Clinton said it was inadvertent. They had a good laugh over how sloppy Berger was.
Someone's going to have to explain the purpose of the "Memorandum of Interview or Activity" section. Initially, I thought it would be notes on the interview of Sandy Berger. However, it seems more like Berger's defense. Many dubious claims are made and not challenged.
page 26:
"it never occurred to mr Berger that by removing the maaar
from the archives, it wouldn't be provided to the 911 commission"
That's written as fact. How do they know what occurred or didn't occur to Berger?
and it ends on page 41 with this defense:
At some point, Mr Berger took notes. He realized he was not going to be able to reconstruct in detail all the documents he had reviewed, so he needed to take his notes home with him, about 10 to 20 pages.
So stealing multiple versions of the MAAAR and immediately destroying two of them was going to help him reconstruct the documents he had reviewed?
bump