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Obama Wars Title: The Lockerbie Lie [ administration says it was surprised and angry at the Lockerbie bomber's "compassionate" release. Now a letter reveals that it actually lobbied for it. ] The administration says it was surprised and angry at the Lockerbie bomber's "compassionate" release. Now a letter reveals that it actually lobbied for it. Was this malicious intent or mere incompetence? Last week, at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, President Obama was asked what he thought about a possible Senate investigation into the "Lockerbie bomber stuff" — namely that British Petroleum, among its other sins, lobbied the British government to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in order to win oil contracts from the Libyan government. Obama replied: "I think all of us here in the United States were surprised, disappointed and angry about the release of the Lockerbie bomber, and my administration expressed very clearly our objections — prior to the decision being made and subsequent to the decision being made." Yet according to the Australian newspaper, the Sunday Times of London has obtained correspondence showing that the administration was not in fact surprised and raised no strong objections. Rather, through the U.S. Embassy in London, it expressed to Scottish officials a preference for compassionate release over jail time in Libya. Obama's statement is simply not accurate. Al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer and the head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines, was the only person convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people, among them 189 Americans. Al-Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison, but Scottish authorities, saying he had terminal cancer and would be dead in three months, chose to free him last August on humanitarian grounds. He is still alive, however, and news reports have questioned whether he was as sick as depicted. According to the Australian, Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the U.S. Embassy in London, sent a letter on Aug. 12, a week before al-Megrahi's release, to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond saying that "if Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the U.S. position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose." The administration may argue that it would have preferred al-Megrahi to stay in Scottish custody, and it said so. But LeBaron's letter does not say that "under no circumstances" should al-Megrahi be released. It appears to be one long "whatever." At one time, the official U.S. position was that if al-Megrahi were ever released, any parole would include extradition to the U.S.
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