Robert Gates. Arms for hostages. Drug money. Reagan.

[blondeatlast]

While we rip each other apart, may I indulge you all a bit for a refresher on the Iran-Contra investigations?

Robert Gates never testified, but he was damn lucky as it's pretty clear he was up to his crotch in it.

Let's remember the kind of opposition we are up against; filthy bastards who put more esteem to political power and money than to human beings.

Iran-Contra history (pay particular attention to how many of the big guns are already W appointees):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_Affair
In 1983, members of Al-Dawa ("The Call"), an exiled Iraqi political party turned militant organization, were imprisoned for their part in a series of truck bombs in Kuwait. In response to the imprisonment, an ally of Al-Dawa, Hezbollah took 30 hostages, <9> six of whom were American. Hezbollah demanded the release of the prisoners for these hostages. Members of the Reagan Administration believed that by selling arms to Iran, Iran would influence the Hezbollah kidnappers in Lebanon to release their hostages. At the time, Iran was in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War and could find few nations willing to supply it with weapons. <10> It would also, according to National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, improve strained relations with Iran.<1> For that reason, weapons were transferred to Iran. The administration stated that President Reagan was unaware of the transfer until attorney general, Edwin Meese, announced it to the media.


First arms sale
In summer 1985, <11> Michael Ledeen, a consultant of Robert McFarlane, asked Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres for help in the sale of arms to Iran. The Israeli government required that the sale of arms meet the approval of the United States government, and when it was convinced that the U.S. government approved the sale by Robert McFarlane, Israel obliged by agreeing to sell the arms. <12> In July 1985, Israel sent American-made BGM-71 TOW (Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided) anti-tank missiles. Reverend Benjamin Weir was subsequently released; despite the fact that arms were being sold to Iran, only Weir was released. This resulted in the failure of Ledeen's plan <8> with only three shipments through Israel. <12>


Robert Gates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gates
Owing to his senior status in the CIA, Gates was close to many figures who played significant roles in the Iran-Contra Affair and was in a position to have known of their activities. The evidence developed by Independent Counsel did not warrant indictment of Gates for his Iran-Contra activities or his responses to official inquiries.

Gates was an early subject of Independent Counsel's investigation, but the investigation of Gates intensified in the spring of 1991 as part of a larger inquiry into the Iran/contra activities of CIA officials. This investigation received an additional impetus in May 1991, when President George H.W. Bush nominated Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). The chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) requested, in a letter to the Independent Counsel on May 15, 1991, any information that would “significantly bear on the fitness” of Gates for the CIA post.

Gates consistently testified that he first heard on October 1, 1986, from Charles E. Allen, the national intelligence officer who was closest to the Iran initiative, that proceeds from the Iran arms sales may have been diverted to support the Contras. Other evidence proves, however, that Gates received a report on the diversion during the summer of 1986 from DDI Richard Kerr.<10> The issue was whether Independent Counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gates was deliberately not telling the truth when he later claimed not to have remembered any reference to the diversion before meeting with Allen in October.

[donkeyotay]

1. I'm sure his solutions for Iraq won't include finding where the money went.

Don't forget the October Surprise - the GOP fear that Carter would get the hostages released right before the election - so, apparently, the Bush-Casey team worked to beat him to it and negotiated with the Iranians to see to it that the hostages weren't released until Reagan was sworn in.

In "American Dynasty" by Kevin Phillips he claims that the charges made in Gary Sick's book "October Surprise" were later confirmed by documents released from Russia in 1993. On page 287 Phillips says that the Russians "found documents showing that Casey had come to Europe in 1980 to meet with Iranians. At the Paris meeting in October, "R(obert) Gates . . . and former CIA director George Bush also took part,"

On the previous page he says that Bush was not happy with Sick's allegations and called for "a task force of the House of Representatives (to) clear him of the undocumented charge that he had secretly flown to Paris in October 1980 to cement a postponed hostage-release arrangement with the Iranians. He never did testify, then or afterward. However, task force chairman Lee Hamilton obliged with the clearance By January 1993, when Bush had already been defeated for reelection, the House investigation had closed down, saying it hadn't really found anything."

Why do they recirculate the same characters over and over? Remember Bush Jr's first pick for the 9-11 Commission? It was Henry Kissinger. Well, at least Whitewash Lee was elected once upon a time.

[blondeatlast]

2. Ah yes--the original "October Surprise" if I'm not mistaken.

And our pending Secretary of Defense was all over it...

[Zhade]

3. Are you asking to hold criminals accountable?

Sorry, some DUers are too politically cowardly to support that, it seems.

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. It isn't DUers so much as the Democratic "leadership"

They gotta be nice, doncha know, and being nice means not holing the previous government accountable. :sarcasm:

[texpatriot2004]

4. kick nm