"By Paul Sperry © 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON – The Clinton administration "de-emphasized" fighting Arab international terrorism to focus on domestic terrorism – namely, white "right-wing" militia groups – which led to the FBI ignoring Arab nationals flocking to U.S. flight schools, veteran FBI agents told WorldNetDaily. They say the shift was so dramatic at the FBI that dozens of boxes of evidence that agents gathered in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case were never analyzed – until it was too late. The evidence held valuable clues to al-Qaida's network and operations, they say. Some 40 boxes of material left over from the WTC investigation, which lasted through the late '90s, "were never gone through," said one Washington-based agent familiar with the probe. Another seven to eight boxes of evidence from the Manila, Philippines, side of the investigation also were never looked at, he added. "It was data tailor-made for analysis," the agent said.
....Meanwhile, despite evidence of an increased threat to U.S. security from such Islamic terrorist groups, former FBI Director Louis Freeh and his former deputy, Robert "Bear" Bryant, were shifting the bureau's counter-terrorism efforts to combatting threats from anti-government militia groups, violent white supremacists, anti-abortion groups and other "right-wing extremists."
"....Other agents, speaking on condition of anonymity, say pressure to change priorities came from the White House. After the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, President Clinton made great political hay of the tragedy by drawing parallels between the anti-government extremists behind the plot and the anti-big-government Republican revolution that had swept Congress."
"Around the same time, he [Bryant] moved the bureau's counterterrorism programs under its National Security Division, and "de-emphasized" the bureau's counterintelligence program, agents say. They say intelligence-gathering on foreign threats suffered as a result. Veteran FBI agents say intelligence is the best weapon against terrorism – something Bryant didn't get."
"...Indeed, the Clinton administration emphasized tracking home-grown terrorism, despite a clear pattern of al-Qaida terrorism against U.S. and U.S. assets overseas – from the WTC bombing to the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa (1998) to the USS Cole bombing (2000). There were also two attacks on U.S. military installations in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996. And while the domestic terrorism for the most part stopped, the foreign terrorism didn't, culminating in another attack on the WTC and also on the Pentagon. Agents told WorldNetDaily that the late John O'Neill, the FBI's lead investigator in the Cole case, was nearly fired by Deputy FBI Director Thomas Pickard for pressing Yemeni officials too hard to cooperate. Pickard, who initially headed the Sept. 11 probe before suddenly retiring just two months later, was earlier this year quoted as saying he was uneasy with agents questioning Muslims in America after the attacks. "
"The Clinton-era emphasis on "right-wing" terrorism wasn't limited to the FBI. Other federal law enforcement branches also focused on the domestic threat from militia groups over the foreign threat from Islamic groups. The head of security at the Commerce Department, for one, sanitized a Y2K counterterrorism report distributed to the Census Bureau by removing Islamic threats. Only threats from white "right-wing" groups were included in the report, Commerce security officials told WorldNetDaily."
Absolutely amazing!!! And not a word of it on the Networks...no BIAS, my arse!!
FReegards...MUD