Security and Defense Studies Review 2010 Fall ... - Offnews.info

all American hostages were released. 17 The Iran and Contra endgames also proved to be largely atcross purposes. For example, North’s delight in overcharging the Iranians for arms and spare parts,generating more funds for the Central Americans, ended up alienating a Tehran already sensitive tobeing cheated by the United States. After the partial delivery of HAWK missiles from Israel it wasNorth himself who relayed to Poindexter his feeling that the Iranians were unlikely to liberate all ofthe hostages in a “single transaction” because they felt that had been “scammed.” 18While North’s role in the arms sales to Iran was important, it was his role in the Contra operationthat made the lieutenant colonel “a big time operator,” becoming “the person who kept the [anti-Sandinista] Contra resistance alive though financing, political support, and his own inventivedetermination.” 19 In an article whose title, “Is the mysterious colonel a saint or a sinner?’ captured thedebate about North in the aftermath of the public disclosure of Iran-Contra machinations, Newsweeknoted that North was “hardly the ‘just-following-orders’ political naïf he sometimes appears to be.In addition to the covert foreign policy he was running out of the White House basement, North wasdeeply involved in domestic policy to win financial and political support for the contras from wealthyconservatives.” 20 Part of that effort was establishing a non-governmental covert entity known as “TheEnterprise” to run the Central American war effort. In that endeavor North’s helpmates included farrightactivists and, according to sources not unsympathetic to larger administration goals, connivancewith known criminals. 21North was also a central figure in the Reagan Administration’s extensive subterfuge for keepingCongress in the dark about the U.S. role in Central America’s proxy wars. For example, althoughReagan assured Congress in June 1985 that his Administration was committed to “political, notmilitary solutions in Central America” and that “we do not seek the military overthrow of the Sandinista[Nicaraguan] government,” that December he reported to his boss at the NSC that, following hisdirections, North had assured allies in Central America that the United States “intend[ed] to pursuevictory” so that these would “not be forced to seek a political accommodation with the Sandinistas.” 22When the arms sales to Iran were revealed in November 1986, Reagan at first appeared onnational television to deny that they had occurred. A week later, however, he again took to theairwaves to admit that weapons had been sent to Iran, but still denied that they were part of a hostageexchange. 23 In the meantime, North and Poindexter began hectically shredding documents to keepthem from reaching the public, after the former had applied “do not log” procedures to those whichended up being destroyed.The dealings with Iran stripped Reagan of his public stance as being “a resolute foe of internationalterrorism.” 24 The secret parleys did not achieve their intended purpose of releasing U.S. hostagesheld in Lebanon. Rather available evidence suggests that once Washington was seen as willing tobetray its own public policy on non-negotiation with hostage takers, pro-Iranian militants kidnapped17Lou Cannon, President Reagan, The Role of a Lifetime, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991, p. 643; Just how far North could stray from officialpolicy underlies the fiction of “following orders” was reflected in the comments of former NSC chief McFarlane, who said that the negotiations inTehran amounted to a “hostage bazaar. I think North knew when we went there that they hadn’t agreed to release the hostages.” p. 651.18Cannon, op. cit., p. 657.19Hartle, op. cit.20Newsweek, December 22, 1986, p. 26.21February 10, 1986 memo from Rob Owen, North’s Central American point person, to North noted that a Contra supply plane “used at one timeto run drugs, and part of the crew had criminal records. Nice group the Boys (CIA) chose.” Other witnesses mentioning a drug connection to thejoint House-Senate committee investigating Iran-Contra included Alan Fiers, head of the CIA Contra task force, and Jose Fernandez, CIA stationchief in Costa Rica. According to The Washington Post, “Contra Aid Figure Says He Almost Quit; At Spymaster’s Trial, Rodriguez tells of DisgustWith Profiteering,” August 5, 1992, CIA operative Felix Rodriguez “said he became upset by the price gouging of the contras and the presence inthe operation of individuals he considered unsavory.” According to Christopher Hitchens, key North associates included a long-time member of theJohn Birch Society and a retired general who once headed “essentially a Third Reich revivalist organization,” the World Anti-Communist League.Hitchens, “The Reagan Doctrine and the Secret State,” MERIP Middle East Report, No. 148, Sept.-Oct. 1987, pp. 6-8.22Scott, “Interbranch Rivalry and the Reagan Doctrine in Nicaragua,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 112, No. 2 (Summer 1997), pp. 250-251.23“Our government has a firm policy not to capitulate to terrorist demands.... We did not—repeat, did not—trade weapons or anything else for hostages,nor will we,” he said.24Cannon, op. cit., p. 652.134Security and Defense Studies Review 2010 Fall-Winter Issue / Edicíón Otoño-Invierno 2010 / Edicão Outono-Inverno 2010 / Volume 11