[Peace-discuss] Obama knuckles under again

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Chas Freeman pulls out
	By BEN SMITH | Updated: 3/10/09 5:32 PM EDT
	
Ambassador Charles W. Freeman Jr., the appointee to chair Obama’s National 
Intelligence Council, withdrew his name from consideration.

The controversial appointee to chair President Barack Obama’s National 
Intelligence Council walked away from the job Tuesday as criticism on Capitol 
Hill escalated.

Charles W. Freeman Jr., the former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, had been praised 
by allies and by the director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, as a 
brilliant, iconoclastic analyst. Critics said he was too hard on Israel and too 
soft on China, and blasted him for taking funding from Saudi royals.

Freeman “requested that his selection to be Chairman of the National 
Intelligence Council not proceed,” Blair’s office said in a statement. “Director 
Blair accepted Ambassador Freeman’s decision with regret.”

The withdrawal came after Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) grilled Blair at a Senate 
Armed Service Committee hearing Tuesday. Lieberman cited his “concern” about 
“statements that [Freeman] has made that appear either to be inclined to lean 
against Israel or too much in favor of China.”

In particular, Freeman has described “Israeli violence against Palestinians” as 
a key barrier to Mideast peace, and referred to violence in Tibet last year — 
widely seen in the U.S. as a revolt against Chinese occupation — as a “race riot.”

His writing drew criticism of members of Congress, but Blair said the words were 
taken “out of context” and allies warned that Obama was allowing domestic 
politics to skew intelligence analysis and continuing the Bush Administration’s 
stance of sidelining critics of Israeli policy toward Palestinians.

“If they withdraw his appointment prior to the conclusion of [Freeman’s formal 
vetting] that would be seen as abject caving in on people who are extreme 
partisans of Israel,” Nicholas Veliotes, a former Ambassador to Egypt, and one 
of 17 former diplomats who signed a letters supporting Freeman, said Tuesday 
before the withdrawal was announced.

But Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), one of Freeman's leading critics, said the 
appointee could have "withstood" the attacks on policy grounds, but ultimately 
was torpedoed by the fact that he headed an institute funded by Saudi royalty 
and sat on the board of a Chinese state oil company.

"The administration made yet another mistake not doing its homework before 
nominating someone to a senior position of unique sensitivity, and then learned 
from the press further and further embarrassing details," Kirk said. "He was 
heavily encumbered by multiple conflicts of interest involving Chinese, Saudi 
and other business dealings that all should have been disclosed long before."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19856.html