Godmother of Baghdad

THE NEXT KING TO RULE BAGHDAD WILL BE a Queen, much to the consternation of some misogynist, macho Muslim males. But she will also be attacked in Washington, D.C., by the same Leftist Democrats who fought to keep Saddam Hussein in power.

A joke of late is that President George W. Bush plans to divide Iraq into three parts – Premium, regular and unleaded.

Coalition forces indeed have announced creation of a northern, southern, and central zone of the de facto administrative government of Iraq, the Pentagon’s “Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance” headed by 64-year-old retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Jay Garner.

This central zone, including Baghdad, is to be administered by career foreign service officer Ambassador Barbara K. Bodine.

This tough, two-fisted, blue-eyed professional was Ambassador to Yemen when the destroyer U.S.S. Cole was bombed by terrorists there in 2000, killing 17 sailors. (She angered conspiracy theorists by refusing maverick FBI agent John O’Neill a visa to re-enter Yemen.)...(snip)

All I remember about Bodine is that she is the one who hampered the Cole investigation. I was under the impression that she was pretty far left, and that she was in good standing with the Clintoon White House, regardless of what the writer above thinks. Whether she is the right person for this particular job, I don't know, but it seems to me that she put the interests of her Yemen ambassador job above that of the nation in the Cole bombing. The hardline Iraqis are going to need a Patton-type in charge there; somebody like Bodine can be in charge of Cultural Affairs. Keep an eye on this one...

The agent was none other than John O'Neill, the New York FBI guy who vainly warned that Osama was coming for years prior to the attack. He put together a lot of the pieces of the puzzle before finally getting so fed up with the FBI's internal politics that he quit in mid-2001. He took over security at the World Trade Center and died shortly after later when it collapsed. He was also reprimanded for the misplacement of a security breifcase during the final year of the Clintons while Louie Freeh was under fire. Regardless, the treatment he got from Bodine in Yemen was enough to make me me very wary of anything she might be involved in, regardless of her political affiliations...

CNN article, dated 8-31-2001;

FBI to resume Cole probe in Yemen

The USS Cole was damaged in a bombing last October that killed 17 U.S. sailors.

By Andrea Koppel
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After an absence of more than three months, FBI investigators are expected to return to Yemen as soon as next week to resume their investigation into last year's bombing of the USS Cole, a senior administration source tells CNN.

An advance team from the FBI, consisting of "technical folks," are now in Yemen to pave the way for next week's arrival of FBI agents after the long holiday weekend.

Earlier this month, the FBI and the State Department reached a tentative agreement on security arrangements for FBI investigators working in Yemen.

The FBI pulled all of its investigators out of Yemen in June after a dispute between the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine, and the FBI's lead supervisor of the investigation, John O'Neill, who wanted permission for his agents to carry heavier weapons in Yemen due to "specific and credible" security threats.

When Bodine denied O'Neill's request, saying that FBI investigators would be protected by the same diplomatic security rules as agents who guard U.S. diplomats at the U.S. Embassy, the FBI suspended its operation in Yemen.

In recent weeks, teams from the FBI, the U.S. Navy and the State Department have been meeting in Washington and in Yemen to try to work out a compromise acceptable to all parties.

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