Gayle in MD
11-28-2011, 11:11 AM
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/25/the_iran_contra_scandal_25_years_later/
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The list of the “other… more important ” aspects of the sordid story that became known as “Iran-contra” scandal is a long one but worth recalling 25 years later. The Reagan administration had been negotiating with terrorists (despite Reagan’s repeated public position that he would “never” do so). There were illegal arms transfers to Iran, flagrant lying to Congress, soliciting third country funding to circumvent the Congressional ban on financing the contra war in Nicaragua, White House bribes to various generals in Honduras, illegal propaganda and psychological operations directed by the CIA against the U.S. press and public, collaboration with drug kingpins such as Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, and violating the checks and balances of the constitution.
“If ever the constitutional democracy of the United States is overthrow,” the leading political analyst of the scandal, Theodore Draper wrote at the time, “we now have a better idea of how this is likely to be done.”
Despite the gravity of the scandal, and the intense political and media focus it generated in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Iran-Contra has been largely forgotten.
Who remembers how many top NSC and CIA officials were convicted of crimes relating to the scandal? (Six, although two, Oliver North and John Poindexter, had their convictions dismissed and four were pardoned by President George Herbert Walker Bush.)
How many people would recall the televised Congressional hearings in 1987 that riveted the nation?
Who would be surprised to learn that a Congressman named Richard Cheney used his role as head of the minority side of the Congressional Iran-Contra investigating commission to develop his theory that the Executive has unilateral powers to do whatever the hell he wants?
Indeed, how many Americans are aware of the key roles played by President Ronald Reagan, and President-to-be George H.W. Bush?
Reagan and Bush were so deeply involved in various aspects of the Iran-Contra operations that the Independent Counsel, Lawrence Walsh, conducted a “criminal liability” evaluation on both of them. (My organization, the National Security Archive, recently obtained these records through the FOIA. We posted them on today.) The studies were drafted in March 1991 by a lawyer on Walsh’s staff, Christian J. Mixter, and represented preliminary conclusions on prosecuting both Reagan and Bush for various crimes ranging from conspiracy to perjury.
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http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB365/index.htm
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The list of the “other… more important ” aspects of the sordid story that became known as “Iran-contra” scandal is a long one but worth recalling 25 years later. The Reagan administration had been negotiating with terrorists (despite Reagan’s repeated public position that he would “never” do so). There were illegal arms transfers to Iran, flagrant lying to Congress, soliciting third country funding to circumvent the Congressional ban on financing the contra war in Nicaragua, White House bribes to various generals in Honduras, illegal propaganda and psychological operations directed by the CIA against the U.S. press and public, collaboration with drug kingpins such as Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, and violating the checks and balances of the constitution.
“If ever the constitutional democracy of the United States is overthrow,” the leading political analyst of the scandal, Theodore Draper wrote at the time, “we now have a better idea of how this is likely to be done.”
Despite the gravity of the scandal, and the intense political and media focus it generated in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Iran-Contra has been largely forgotten.
Who remembers how many top NSC and CIA officials were convicted of crimes relating to the scandal? (Six, although two, Oliver North and John Poindexter, had their convictions dismissed and four were pardoned by President George Herbert Walker Bush.)
How many people would recall the televised Congressional hearings in 1987 that riveted the nation?
Who would be surprised to learn that a Congressman named Richard Cheney used his role as head of the minority side of the Congressional Iran-Contra investigating commission to develop his theory that the Executive has unilateral powers to do whatever the hell he wants?
Indeed, how many Americans are aware of the key roles played by President Ronald Reagan, and President-to-be George H.W. Bush?
Reagan and Bush were so deeply involved in various aspects of the Iran-Contra operations that the Independent Counsel, Lawrence Walsh, conducted a “criminal liability” evaluation on both of them. (My organization, the National Security Archive, recently obtained these records through the FOIA. We posted them on today.) The studies were drafted in March 1991 by a lawyer on Walsh’s staff, Christian J. Mixter, and represented preliminary conclusions on prosecuting both Reagan and Bush for various crimes ranging from conspiracy to perjury.
</div></div>
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB365/index.htm