Make no mistake: the Defense Department is just as clueless now. They take at face value any Muslim’s statements of “moderation,” so hungry are they to find “moderates.” “Radical Muslim Cleric’s Pentagon Lunch: Top DOD Lawyers, Executive Director of CAIR Invited,” by Catherine Herridge, Pamela Browne, Cyd Upson and Gregory Johnson for FoxNews.com, June 7 (thanks to all who sent this in):
The Pentagon’s top lawyers and the executive director of controversial Muslim group Council of American Islamic Relations were invited to lunch with radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki on Feb. 5, 2002, as part of the Defense Department’s outreach to moderate Muslims, according to new documents obtained exclusively by the Fox News Specials Unit.
For the first time, Fox News is making the document available online.
After the Fort Hood massacre in November 2009, a Defense Department employee came forward to tell FBI investigators that the cleric, the first American on the CIA’s “kill-or-capture” list, was a guest speaker at the Pentagon five months after 9/11.
The internal Defense Department email, obtained by Fox through the Freedom of Information Act, shows that more than 70 people were copied on the luncheon invitation at one of the Pentagon’s executive dining rooms. While most of the names were redacted by the defense department, citing the privacy exemption, the names that remain include Deputy General Counsel Charles Allen, former Deputy General Counsel Whit Cobb, former principal Deputy General Counsel Dan Dell’Orto, former General Counsel William Haynes, Deputy General Counsel Paul Koffsky and former deputy General Counsel Douglas Larsen.
Koffsky, Allen and Dell’Orto responded through a Defense Department spokesman who said they did not go to the lunch. In the case of Mr. Koffsky and Mr. Allen, the spokesman added “Nor do they have any recollection or specific information of who may have vouched for or recommended the cleric.”
Cobb said that he did not attend the lunch. Separately, Fox News learned that Haynes believes he did not go either. There was no immediate response from Larsen, who could not be reached through a Washington, D.C., area listing. Cobb, Haynes, Dell’Orto are now attorneys in private practice.
According to the email, there was at least one civilian on the guest list. The email invitation reads: “Mr. Nihad Awad, President of the Counsel [sic] on American-Islamic Relations has also expressed interest in attending.”
Fox News sent questions to Awad though a spokesman at CAIR, including whether he had provided positive recommendations for Awlaki to either the FBI or the Defense Department immediately after 9/11.
Fox News also asked whether Awad attended a fundraiser at UC Irvine on Sept. 9, 2001, for the defense of Jamil al-Amin who was later conficted [sic] of killing a sheriff’s deputy in Atlanta Georgia. Documents show Awad provided a video message for the fundraising event and al-Awlaki went to the fundraiser. On Sept. 10 of that year, al-Awlaki, who has documented ties to three of the five Sept. 11 hijackers, flew back to Washington, landing on the morning of Sept. 11.
Fox News contacted CAIR multiple times over a 10 day period and there was no response after the initial contact when a spokesman asked for questions to be submitted….
Read it all. There is much more cluelessness and idiocy, including the fact that these dhimmi fools put ham on the menu, which could have started a jihad right there and then.