Mere Rhetoric has an excellent roundup and analysis of the possible appointment of Chas Freeman to be the chairman of the National Intelligence Council.
Ed Lasky provides more background.
Now the Obama Mideast Monitor is reporting that the appointment is not final.
Did they look into his sources of income and that of his Middle East Policy Council (formerly the Arab American Affairs Council, founded by Richard H. Curtiss, who also founded the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs), activities of which are funded directly by Saudi Arabia?
(For an idea of what the MEPC is like, here’s a list of its resident experts. Needless to say, one of those experts, Helena Cobban is ecstatic.)
But the funding of Freeman’s work by Saudi Arabia should come as no surprise. The Saudis know how to take care of their friends.
The number of ex-U.S. ambassadors to Riyadh who now push a pro-Saudi line is startling Walter L. Cutler runs the Meridian International Center, which has been heavily supported by the Saudis. Richard Murphy wields influence as a pro-Saudi voice at the Council on Foreign Relations The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an influential and independent, nonpartisan foreign policy membership organization founded in 1921 and based at 58 East 68th Street (corner Park Avenue) in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C.
Chas W. Freeman Jr. now runs the robustly pro-Arab Middle East Policy Council, and heads a firm that sets up joint international business ventures. And lower-level diplomats with Riyadh experience on their resumes can be found throughout U.S. foreign-policy circles.
(The principled Hume Horan was an apparent exception.)
And Freeman isn’t exactly shy about his Saudi paymasters.
Freeman: About a year and a half ago the board of MEPC took a hard look at the future. We concluded that we probably couldn’t continue our work and we couldn’t survive on the basis of a continuing flow of small and medium size donations. The only way we could ensure our survival and the continuation of our work over the long run was through the establishment of an endowment.
Thanks to the generosity of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia we have managed to accumulate an endowment that would be sufficient to allow us to close down in an orderly fashion over the course of a year if we had to do that. By close down, I mean to try to find a home for the three programs that we conduct — the forums, the journal and the teacher training program.
So we are very much now focused on trying to build an endowment to ensure complete continuity of our programs through all time. We probably require $12-$15 million and we are trying very hard to find donors who are willing to contribute to that.
(According to the interview, this Saudi funded organization trains high school teachers for American schools.)
Ambassador Freeman, as could be expected of someone sympathetic to Saudi Arabia is anti-Israel as this 2000 op-ed in the New York Times demonstrates.
At least since Freeman’s term in Saudi Arabia ended he has been well financed by them. Now he may well be appointed to a position of influence in the administration. Is the Saudi investment about to pay off big time?
Exit question: Will any of Israel’s critics suggest that Freeman is more loyal to Saudi Arabia than to the United States?
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
