Iran-Contra Affair
In the Iran-Contra Affair,
United States President
Ronald Reagan's administration secretly sold
arms to
Iran, which was engaged in a bloody war with its neighbor
Iraq from
1980 to 1988 (see
Iran-Iraq War), and diverted the proceeds to the
Contra
rebels fighting to overthrow the
leftist
democratically-elected
Sandinista government of
Nicaragua. Those sales thus had a dual goal:
appeasing Iran, which held American hostages and supported
bombings in Western European countries, and funding an anti-Communist
guerrilla war.
Both actions were contrary to acts of
Congress which prohibited the sale of weapons to Iran, as well as
in violation of
UN
sanctions.
The
Israeli government approached the United States in August
1985 with
a proposal to act as an intermediary by shipping 508 American-made
TOW
anti-tank missiles to Iran in exchange for the release of the Reverend
Benjamin Weir, an American hostage being held by Iranian sympathizers
in
Lebanon, with the understanding that the United States would then
ship replacement missiles to Israel.
Robert McFarlane, the Assistant to the President for National
Security Affairs, approached
United States Secretary of Defense
Caspar Weinberger and arranged the details. The transfer took
place over the next two months.
In November, there was another round of negotiations, where the
Israelis proposed to ship Iran 500
HAWK anti-aircraft missiles in exchange for the release of all
remaining American hostages being held in Lebanon. General
Colin Powell attempted to procure the missiles, but realized that
the deal would require
Congressional notification as its overall value exceeded $14
million. McFarlane responded that the President had decided to conduct
the sale anyway. Israel sent an initial shipment of 18 missiles to
Iran in late November, but the Iranians didn't approve of the
missiles, and further shipments were halted. Negotiations continued
with the Israelis and Iranians over the next few months.
In January of
1986,
Reagan allegedly approved a plan whereby an American intermediary,
rather than Israel, would sell arms to Iran in exchange for the
release of the hostages, with profits funnelled to the Contras. In
February, 1,000 TOW missiles were shipped to Iran. From May to
November, there were additional shipments of miscellaneous weapons and
parts.
The proceeds from the arms sales were diverted, via Colonel
Oliver North, aide to the U.S.
National Security Advisor
John Poindexter, to provide arms for the
Contras
(from Spanish contrarrevolucionario,
"counter-revolutionary"). The Sandinistas' eventual loss of power in
the 1990 national election was seen by some as stemming from U.S.
support for the contras as well as the effects of a U.S. trade
embargo
initiated in May
1985.
The U.S. accused the Sandinistas of being backed by the
Soviet Union and
Cuba, and
of supporting in turn left-wing rebels against the U.S.-backed
government in
El Salvador, scene of a destructive civil war throughout the
1980s.
In
1985,
the Sandinista movement claimed a majority in elections validated by
other independent observers from Western democracies as having been
fair and free, but the Reagan administration rejected the election as
fraudulent.
Many
conservatives agreed with Reagan and ignored the findings of these
international observers, comparing the election to one-candidate
"elections" in communist countries, although six parties ran against
the Sandinistas in that election, winning 35 of 96 seats in the
national legislature.
The Reagan administration, contrary to acts of Congress
(specifically the
1982-1983
Boland Amendment), ferried funds and weaponry to the Contras
gained by the sale of arms to Iran. The Contras, led by former members
of the National Guard of the overthrown
Somoza
regime (1936-1979)
received weapons and training from the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency, especially in
guerrilla tactics such as destroying infrastructural elements and
assassination.
In November of 1986, the first public allegations of the
weapons-for-hostages deal surfaced when on
November 3 the
Lebanese magazine
Ash-Shiraa reported that the United States had been selling
weapons to Iran in secret in order to secure the release of seven
American
hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon. The clandestine
operation was discovered only after an airlift of guns was downed over
Nicaragua. National Security Council member
Oliver North and his secretary on
November 21 started to shred documents implicating them and others
in the scandal. US Attorney General
Edwin Meese on
November 25 admitted that profits from covert weapons sales to
Iran were illegally diverted to the anti-communist Contra rebels in
Nicaragua.
Faced with mounting pressure, Reagan on
November 26 announced that as of
December 1 former Senator
John Tower, former Secretary of State
Edmund Muskie, and former National Security Adviser
Brent Scowcroft would serve as members of a Special Review Board
looking into the scandal; this
Presidential Commission became known as the
Tower Commission. Reagan claimed he had not been informed of the
operation Despite a
January 1,
1986
entry in Reagan's personal diary that stated "I agreed to sell TOWs to
Iran," the Tower Commission, which implicated North, Poindexter, and
Weinberger, amongst others, could not conclusively determine the
degree of Reagan's involvement. Nevertheless on
February 26,
1987 the
Tower Commission rebuked President Reagan for not controlling his
national security staff.
The
United States Congress then on
November 18,
1987
issued its final report on the affair, which stated that Reagan bore
"ultimate responsibility" for wrongdoing by his aides and his
administration exhibited "secrecy, deception, and disdain for the
law." Oliver North and John Poindexter were indicted on charges of
conspiracy to defraud the United States on
March
16,
1988.
North was convicted of three charges which were eventually vacated
upon appeal. Poindexter was convicted on several
felony
counts of lying to Congress, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, and
altering and destroying documents pertinent to the investigation. His
convictions were also overturned on appeal on essentially the same
grounds as North's.
Some claim there is also evidence that the
CIA and
perhaps other parts of the US government may have been involved with
drug trafficking to raise money for the Contra campaign. The 1988
report from the
Senate Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism and International
Operations concluded that various individuals in the Contra movement
were involved in drug trafficking, that other drug traffickers
provided assistance to the Contras, and that "there are some serious
questions as to whether or not US officials involved in Central
America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the
war effort against Nicaragua." At a minimum, Oliver North's notebooks
indicate that he was informed repeatedly of Contra involvement in drug
trafficking, and there is no record of his passing this information
along to the
DEA.
In (June
27, 1986) the
International Court of Justice (also known as the
World Court) ruled in favour of Nicaragua in the case of "Military
and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua". The U.S.
refused to pay restitution and simply claimed that the ICJ was not
competent for the case, and subsequently vetoed a
United Nations Security Council Resolution calling on all states
to obey international law. The
United Nations General Assembly passed a
resolution (http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/41/a41r031.htm)
in order to pressure the U.S. to pay the fine. Only
El Salvador, which also had disputes with Nicaragua (and was run
by a US-backed right wing military dictatorship), and Israel (which
receives US$4 billion a year in aid from the US) voted with the U.S.
The money still has not been paid.
The Sandinistas lost power in fresh elections in February
1990,
following a decade of U.S. economic and military pressure.
The Iran-Contra Affair is significant because it brought many
questions into public view:
- Does the president have unconditional authority to conduct
foreign policy? (Can the president approve selling arms to a foreign
nation without
congressional approval?)
- What information does the president have to provide to Congress
and when should that information be supplied? (Does the president
have to tell Congress about foreign policy initiatives?)
- What authority, if any, does Congress have to oversee functions
of the executive branch? (Does funding for foreign policy
initiatives have to be approved by Congress? Who defines the entire
spending budget and who regulates it?)
- What role does the
Supreme Court have in deciding conflicts between the
legislative branch and
executive branch?
- How much support is America entitled to provide to armed
opposition forces seeking to replace a government it does not
support with one that it does?
Most, if not all, of the constitutional and ethical questions are
still unresolved. On one view, it appears that if the legislative and
executive branches do not wish to work together, there are no legal
remedies. These are transient issues in that each of the executive and
legislative branches change every few years.
There's more to add here, particularly on the political impact of
the scandal on Reagan's presidency. It won't do simply to say "it was
damaging"; it's obviously more complicated than that.
See also
inks
