From: "John Beamish" 

So ... Secret Service, FBI and CIA all investigate ("separate but
parallel investigations").  Who are they going to interview?  They
could interview the 17 Iraqis and Kuwaitis.  They could interview the
Kuwaitis who interviewed the 17.  (I was tempted to write "who
'interviewed' the 17" since the use of unorthodox measures is not
unheard of in Kuwait but let us assume that normal questioning was used.) 
Basically, everybody is interviewing the same people or the interviewers
themselves.

As for concluding that the bomb materials were from Iraqi intelligence,
I've seen nothing in my (admittedly limited) reading to suggest that there
was anything distinguishing about Iraqi intelligence explosives.  So, for
me, that link remains tenuous at best.

You could very well be right that the admin official was Clarke.  I haven't
read his book and have only skimmed bits of his testimony so I'm not really
in a position to suggest an alternative.  But, whether or not is Clarke, is
not relevant.  What _is_ relevant is the thought that this was a message
that the parallel investigates saw and recognized for what it was:  a
direction pointing to the "appropriate" report conclusions.


"Bill Lucy"  wrote in message
news:MPG.1ae65bde1abc68b798983a{at}news.barkto.com...
> In article , JLBeamish{at}rogers.com says...
> > Or, possibly, not.
> >
> > http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?020930fr_archive02
>
> Not according to Richard Clarke.
>
> Here's what Hersh says:
>
> "The Administration, with its well-meaning but floundering leadership,
> spent two months investigating and debating the alleged assassination
> attempt, and then ordered the bombing just one day after receiving a
> written intelligence report on it. That report, delivered on June 24th
> by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, provided what the President and
> his advisers concluded was compelling evidence of Iraqi complicity at
> the top."
>
> Here's what Clarke says:
>
> "On instructions from Tony Lake, I asked Secret Service, FBI, and CIA to
> send teams to Kuwait. Attorney General Janet Reno and CIA director
> Woolsey agreed to conduct two separate but parallel investigations , one
> in law enforcement and one in intelligence channels. It took over a
> month, but in early June the two reports were in draft. Both agencies
> corroborated the prisoners' story. The bomb materials were also
> definitely from Iraqi intelligence."
>
> It was more than two weeks after the two drafts that the plan for the
> strike came together.
>
>
> BTW, Hersh's article doesn't mention Clarke by name, but this paragraph
> sure sounds like him to me:
>
> "A significant factor in the campaign against Saddam Hussein was simple
> animosity, stemming from the Iraqi leader's occupation of Kuwait in
> August of 1990 and his near-suicidal defiance of American pressure,
> which resulted in the brutal and disastrous Gulf War in early 1991. A
> former American ambassador in the Middle East recalled his surprise when
> a colleague, who holds a high post in the Clinton Administration, told
> him that he had started arguing for retaliation on the day after the
> first reports of an assassination attempt reached Washington from
> Kuwait. "I was shocked, because I view him as a normally very
> responsible and sober person, who understands about power and how to use
> it," the former ambassador said. "He just hates Saddam—a visceral
> hatred.""
>

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