He was also formerly FBI anti-terror chief - in the book he complains about State Department not being helpful in FBI's pursuit of Bin Laden - because of relations with Saudi Arabia, the land of the US oil. This is an interesting read - since he complained about that a couple of months before the WTC disaster in which he died....
ivo
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
November 12, 2001
THE HUNT
Oil Diplomacy Muddled U.S. Pursuit of bin Laden, New Book Contends
By ETHAN BRONNER
[A] former F.B.I. antiterror official who was killed at the World Trade
Center on Sept. 11 complained bitterly last summer that the United
States was unwilling to confront Saudi Arabia over Osama bin Laden and
that oil ruled American foreign policy, according to a new book
published in France.
The former official, John P. O'Neill, was the director of antiterrorism
for the F.B.I.'s New York office when he resigned in August to become
chief of security for the twin towers.
"All the answers, everything needed to dismantle Osama bin Laden's
organization can be found in Saudi Arabia," Mr. O'Neill is quoted as
saying in the new book, "Ben Laden: La Vérité Interdite" ("Bin Laden:
The Forbidden Truth"), which argues that Saudi support for Mr. bin Laden
has been extensive.
One of the book's co-authors, Jean- Charles Brisard, a security expert
who has spent several years examining Mr. bin Laden's financial empire,
says in the book that he met with Mr. O'Neill in June and July. Mr.
O'Neill is quoted as lamenting "the inability of American officials to
get anything at all from King Fahd," the ailing Saudi ruler.
He explains the failure in one word: oil.
In telephone interviews and e-mail exchanges, Mr. Brisard elaborated on
the book, released this week by the French publishing house Denöel.
He said he first met Mr. O'Neill in June in Paris, where the two had
dinner with a group of French antiterror officials. Mr. Brisard had
written a report for the French intelligence services on the finances of
Mr. bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization and he gave Mr. O'Neill a copy.
In late July, he said, they met alone in New York for drinks and dinner,
and Mr. O'Neill complained that the F.B.I. was not free to act in
international terror investigations because the State Department kept
interfering.
Mr. O'Neill, who had worked on investigations of the first World Trade
Center bombing, in 1993, and on the attacks on two American embassies in
Africa in 1998, also suggested that he would soon move to the private
sector, Mr. Brisard said.
Mr. Brisard said his conversations with Mr. O'Neill were not interviews.
He is publicizing Mr. O'Neill's opinions as "a tribute" to a man he admired.
Mr. O'Neill's frustrations with the State Department were not secret. He
had been leading the F.B.I.'s investigation into the bombing of the
destroyer Cole in Yemen in October 2000, but he had been barred in July
from returning to Yemen by the United States ambassador there.
The ambassador, Barbara Bodine, complained that Mr. O'Neill and his
associates showed no sensitivity to Yemeni culture or concerns and were
harming relations between the two countries.
After Mr. O'Neill's death in September, Yemeni officials called the
F.B.I. and offered to cooperate with their investigations, Barry W.
Mawn, the assistant director of the F.B.I., announced at Mr. O'Neill's
funeral Mass.
The book by Mr. Brisard, written with Guillaume Dasquié, a journalist,
also makes public for the first time the first international warrant for
the arrest of Mr. bin Laden. It is a 1998 Interpol document from Libya.
The so-called red notice, file number 1998/20032, accuses Mr. bin Laden
and three Libyans of killing two Germans in Libya in 1994.
The book identifies the victims as Silvan Becker and his wife and says
they were German antiterror agents. It says Libya's leader, Col. Muammar
el-Qaddafi, sought their killers because they were members of a group
linked to Mr. bin Laden that also wanted to kill Colonel Qaddafi. That
group, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, was listed by President Bush
after the Sept. 11 attacks as one whose assets should be frozen worldwide.
According to the new French book, Mr. bin Laden was in Libya when the
two Germans were killed in 1994. The book also asserts that Colonel
Qaddafi's fears had some foundation. It says the British secret service,
MI5, tried to assassinate Colonel Qaddafi in 1996 using members of that
same Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.
The book says it was because of that collaboration that the Interpol
document with its Libyan origin has not been made public. Mr. Brisard
said he had received the document from a former senior Interpol official
who told him that British and American officials had kept it from public
view.
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