Oliver North was and still is Israel supporting scum.
The Iran–Contra affair was a political scandal in the United States
that came to light in November 1986. During the Reagan administration,
senior Reagan Administration officials secretly facilitated the sale
of arms to Iran, .
The scandal began as an operation to free American hostages being held
by terrorist groups with Iranian ties. It was planned that Israel
would ship weapons to Iran, and then the U.S. would resupply Israel
and receive the Israeli payment. Large modifications to the plan were
devised by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security
Council in late 1985, in which a portion of the proceeds from the
weapon sales was diverted to fund anti-Sandinista and anti-communist
rebels, or Contras, in Nicaragua.
Oliver North, one of the central figures in the affair, wrote in a
book that "Ronald Reagan knew of and approved a great deal of what
went on with both the Iranian initiative and private efforts on behalf
of the contras and he received regular, detailed briefings on both."
Mr. North also writes: "I have no doubt that he was told about the use
of residuals for the Contras, and that he approved it.
Enthusiastically."
After the weapon sales were revealed in November 1986, Reagan appeared
on national television and stated that the weapons transfers had
indeed occurred, but that the United States did not trade arms for
hostages.
On March 4, 1987, Reagan returned to the airwaves in a nationally
televised address, taking full responsibility for any actions that he
was unaware of, and admitting that "what began as a strategic opening
to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for
hostages."
Several investigations ensued, including those by the United States
Congress and the three-man, Reagan-appointed Tower Commission. Neither
found any evidence that President Reagan himself knew of the extent of
the multiple programs.[3][4][8] In the end, fourteen administration
officials were indicted, including then-Secretary of Defense Caspar
Weinberger. Eleven convictions resulted, some of which were vacated on
appeal. The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned in
the final days of the George H. W. Bush presidency; Bush had been vice-
president at the time of the affair.[15] Some of those involved in the
Iran–Contra scandal who were convicted of felonies and subsequently
pardoned later became members of the administration of George W. Bush.
The scandal was composed of arms sales to Iran in violation of the
official US policy of an arms embargo against Iran, and of using funds
thus generated to arm and train the Contra militants based in Honduras
as they waged a guerilla war to topple the government of Nicaragua.
The scandal emerged when a Lebanese newspaper reported that the U.S.
sold arms to Iran through Israel in exchange for the release of
hostages by Hezbollah. Letters sent by Oliver North to John Poindexter
support this. The Israeli ambassador to the U.S. has said that the
reason weapons were eventually sold directly to Iran was to establish
links with elements of the military in the country.
Michael Ledeen, a consultant of National Security Adviser Robert
McFarlane, requested assistance from Israeli Prime Minister Shimon
Peres for help in the sale of arms to Iran. At the time, Iran was in
the midst of the Iran–Iraq War and could find few Western nations
willing to supply it with weapons. The idea behind the plan was for
Israel to ship weapons through an intermediary (identified as Manucher
Ghorbanifar) to a supposedly moderate, politically influential Iranian
group opposed to the Ayatollah Khomeni;[28] after the transaction, the
U.S. would reimburse Israel with the same weapons, while receiving
monetary benefits. The Israeli government required that the sale of
arms meet high level approval from the United States government, and
when Robert McFarlane convinced them that the U.S. government approved
the sale, Israel obliged by agreeing to sell the arms.
Israel requested permission from the U.S. to sell a small number of
TOW antitank missiles (Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided)
to the "moderate" Iranians,[29] saying that it would demonstrate that
the group actually had high-level connections to the U.S. government.
[29] Reagan initially rejected the plan, until Israel sent information
to the U.S. showing that the "moderate" Iranians were opposed to
terrorism and had fought against it.[32] Now having a reason to trust
the "moderates", Reagan approved the transaction, which was meant to
be between Israel and the "moderates" in Iran, with the U.S.
reimbursing Israel.
In July 1985, Israel sent American-made BGM-71 TOW antitank missiles
to Iran through an arms dealer named Manucher Ghorbanifar, a friend of
Iran's Prime Minister, Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Hours after receiving the
weapons, the Islamic fundamentalist group Islamic Jihad (that later
evolved into Hezbollah) released one hostage they had been holding in
Lebanon, the Reverend Benjamin Weir.
On the day of McFarlane's resignation, Oliver North, a military aide
to the United States National Security Council (NSC), proposed a new
plan for selling arms to Iran, which included two major adjustments:
instead of selling arms through Israel, the sale was to be direct, and
a portion of the proceeds would go to Contras, or Nicaraguan guerilla
fighters opposed to communism, at a markup. North proposed a $15
million markup, while contracted arms broker Ghorbanifar added a 41%
markup of his own. At first, the Iranians refused to buy the arms at
the inflated price because of the excessive markup imposed by North
and Ghorbanifar. They eventually relented, and in February 1986, 1,000
TOW missiles were shipped to the country. From May to November 1986,
there were additional shipments of miscellaneous weapons and parts.
Throughout February 1986, weapons were shipped directly to Iran by the
United States (as part of Oliver North's plan, without the knowledge
of President Reagan) and none of the hostages were released.
Col. North's handwritten notebooks and memoranda show that North and
other U.S. officials were repeatedly informed that the Contras' ties
to trafficking of drugs from Latin America into the United States and
that airplanes from the U.S. used to supply arms to the Contras were
being flown back with Contras personnel aboard carrying cocaine into
the United States.
After a leak by Iranian Mehdi Hashemi, the Lebanese magazine Ash-
Shiraa exposed the arrangement on November 3, 1986.[22] This was the
first public reporting of the weapons-for-hostages deal. The operation
was discovered only after an airlift of guns was downed over
Nicaragua. Eugene Hasenfus, who was captured by Nicaraguan
authorities, initially alleged in a press conference on Nicaraguan
soil that two of his coworkers, Max Gomez and Ramon Medina, worked for
the Central Intelligence Agency.[56] He later said he did not know
whether they did or not.[57] The Iranian government confirmed the Ash-
Shiraa story, and ten days after the story was first published,
President Ronald Reagan appeared on national television from the Oval
Office on November 13 stating:
"My purpose was... to send a signal that the United States was
prepared to replace the animosity between [the U.S. and Iran] with a
new relationship... At the same time we undertook this initiative, we
made clear that Iran must oppose all forms of international terrorism
as a condition of progress in our relationship. The most significant
step which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its
influence in Lebanon to secure the release of all hostages held
there."
The scandal was compounded when Oliver North destroyed or hid
pertinent documents between November 21 and November 25, 1986. During
North's trial in 1989, his secretary, Fawn Hall, testified extensively
about helping North alter, shred, and remove official United States
National Security Council (NSC) documents from the White House.
According to The New York Times, enough documents were put into a
government shredder to jam it.[43] North's explanation for destroying
some documents was to protect the lives of individuals involved in
Iran and Contra operations.[43] It was not until years after the trial
that North's notebooks were made public, and only after the National
Security Archive and Public Citizen sued the Office of the Independent
Council under the Freedom of Information Act.[43]
During the trial North testified that on November 21, 22, or 24, he
witnessed Poindexter destroy what may have been the only signed copy
of a presidential covert-action finding that sought to authorize CIA
participation in the November 1985 Hawk missile shipment to Iran.
US Attorney General Edwin Meese admitted on November 25 that profits
from weapons sales to Iran were made available to assist the Contra
rebels in Nicaragua. On the same day, John Poindexter resigned, and
Oliver North was fired by President Reagan.[58] Poindexter was
replaced by Frank Carlucci on December 2, 1986.
In his expose Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981–1987, journalist
Bob Woodward chronicles the role of the CIA in facilitating the
transfer of funds from the Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contras
spearheaded by Oliver North.[60] Then Director of the CIA, William J.
Casey, admitted to Woodward in February 1987 that he was aware of the
diversion of funds to the contras confirming a number of encounters
documented by Woodward. The admission occurred while Casey was
hospitalized for a stroke. On May 6, 1987 William Casey died the day
after Congress began its public hearings on the Iran-contra affair.
President Reagan appeared before the Tower Commission on December 2,
1986, to answer questions regarding his involvement in the affair.
When asked about his role in authorizing the arms deals, he first
stated that he had; later, he appeared to contradict himself by
stating that he had no recollection of doing so. In his 1990
autobiography, An American Life, Reagan acknowledges authorizing the
shipments to Israel.
Once the contra-affair came into the public knowledge, the Nicaraguan
government sued the United States before the International Court of
Justice, which in the case The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United
States of America ruled in favour of Nicaragua mandating the payment
of compensation, which the United States refused to do.
Finally, the president stated that his previous assertions that the
U.S. did not trade arms for hostages were incorrect:
"A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for
hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true,
but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board
reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in
its implementation, into trading arms for hostages. This runs counter
to my own beliefs, to administration policy, and to the original
strategy we had in mind."
Oliver North and John Poindexter were indicted on multiple charges on
March 16, 1988. North, indicted on 16 counts, was found guilty by a
jury of three minor counts. The convictions were vacated on appeal on
the grounds that North's Fifth Amendment rights may have been violated
by the indirect use of his testimony to Congress which had been given
under a grant of immunity.
On December 24, 1992, nearing the end of his term in office after
being defeated in election by Bill Clinton the previous month, George
H. W. Bush pardoned six administration officials, namely Elliott
Abrams, Duane R. Clarridge, Alan Fiers, Clair George, Robert
McFarlane, and Caspar Weinberger.[76]
After winning the US Presidency eight years later, George W. Bush
selected a number of Reagan-era individuals for high-level posts in
Bush's new presidential administration. They included:
Elliott Abrams:[79] under Bush, the Special Assistant to the President
and Senior Director on the National Security Council for Near East and
North African Affairs; in Iran-Contra, pleaded guilty on two counts of
unlawfully withholding information, pardoned.
Otto Reich:[80] head of the Office of Public Diplomacy under Reagan.
John Negroponte:[81] under Bush, served as the Ambassador to Iraq, the
National Intelligence Director, and the Deputy Secretary of State.
Admiral John Poindexter: under Bush, Director of the Information
Awareness Office; in Iran-Contra, found guilty of multiple felony
counts for conspiracy, obstruction of justice, lying to Congress,
defrauding the government, and the alteration and destruction of
evidence, convictions reversed.
In Poindexter's hometown of Odon, Indiana, a street was renamed to
John Poindexter Street. Bill Breeden, a former minister, stole the
street's sign in protest of the Iran-Contra Affair. He claimed that he
was holding it for a ransom of $30 million, in reference to the amount
of money given to Iran to transfer to the Contras. He was later
arrested and confined to prison, making him, as satirically noted by
Howard Zinn, "the only person to be imprisoned as a result of the Iran-
Contra Scandal."
On Apr 5, 12:10 am, dick thompson <rhomp2...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> http://www.nragive.com/ringoffreedom/index.html
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