Barbara Bodine

Barbara Bodine is an American academic and former diplomat made infamous by The Looming Tower series that depicts her blocking FBI agent John O'Neill's investigation in to the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden harbour on October 12, 2000. Bodine's tenure as Ambassador to Yemen began in November 1997, about which she later stated:

"When I got there in 1997, there was already an Al Qaeda presence. We knew about it. The Yemenis knew about it. Everyone knew about it.... these people were primarily foreign nationals. One of the best ways to describe the presence is that they were largely warehousing lower-level people in peripheral areas"

I can confirm Bodine's description of Al Qaeda's presence in Yemen as accurate because when I visited Yemen in September 1997 I met 9/11 terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his Pakistani terrorist cell in an empty factory building (a warehouse) on the periphery of Taiz city, 17-miles south of Al Qaidah town. KSM was being hosted in the HQ compound of the multi-billion dollar Hayel Saeed Anam Group at PO Box 5302 Taiz. That was exactly where and when the 9/11 plot began.

PBS: How Al Qaeda Grew in Yemen

Given her accurate knowledge of Al Qaeda's presence in Yemen, why would Bodine block FBI agent John O'Neill's USS Cole investigation? Did she fear he may correctly link Al Qaeda and Al Qaidah town? Perhaps she feared O'Neill would investigate the Hayel Saeed Anam Group who had terrorism funding links going back to 1982. I admit those are wild suggestions and the current explaination is it was simply a personality clash, but my accusations become less wild when you know Bodine's links the the terrorist financing, hosting and facilitating Hayel Saeed Anam Group.

Bodine's tenure as ambassador to Yemen ended on August 30 2001 and she has since enjoyed a stella academic career. She's a Distinguished Professor at Georgetown University, has lectured at the Kennedy School of Government, MIT, and was a director of the Scholars at Princeton University. She is also a Member of the Advisory Board to the Yemeni Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, which is where her link to the Hayel Saeed Anam Group becomes apparent. The Sana'a Center's chairman is Maged Almadhaji who just happens to be a close associate of the Hayel Saeed Anam group family member Shawki A. H. Saeed.

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While they are facts that the Hayel Saeed Anam Group has documented terrorism funding links starting in 1982, that it price skimmed on 1990s United Nations Iraqi oil-for-food contracts, that it's headquarters was on Al Qaidah town's doorstep, and that they hosted, funded and helped Khalid Sheikh Mohammed plan 9/11 - the link to Barbara Bodine is, at this stage, just circumstancial.

But when assessing those circumstances it must be remembered that Bodine's tenure as ambassador in Yemen began less that six weeks after the 9/11 plot was initiated in the Hayel Saeed Anam group HQ and ended exactly twelve days before that terrorist plot was executed. Also remember that when seventeen Americans were killed on the USS Cole, she stopped the one man, John O'Neill, who may have investigated Al Qaidah town and the Hayel Saeed Anam Group from investigating by banning him from even entering Yemen.

Now I'm certainly no diplomat, and admit to being a very amateur investigator, but if I was a family member or loved one of any of the seventeen killed in the USS Cole bombing or of the 2,977 murdered on 9/11, I'd really want to know what the fuck Bodine thought she was doing blocking John O'Neill from investigating the USS Cole bombing, and more importantly, just how far do her circumstancial links to the Hayel Saeed Anam Group go.