htaccess ignoring directory

Hi.
I have wordpress, with permlinks, and I’ve got a .htaccess file in the root.
But I have a secured directory outside of wordpress which displays stats.
/stats/
how can I exclude this from the .htaccess file?
I’ve searched and tried lots of things, but I either get it so that nothing works, or that I can’t get the stats page.
I’ve tried.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# stuff to let through (ignore)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/stats/(.*)$
RewriteRule ^.*$ – [L]#
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
and
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# stuff to let through (ignore)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(stats|stats/.*)$
RewriteRule (.*) $1 [L]
#
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

neither works.

Any Ideas?

Leona.