The Iran-Contra Affair
(1985 - 1987)
According to the Report of the Congressional
Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair issued in November
1987, the sale of U.S. arms to Iran through Israel began in the summer of 1985, after receiving the
approval of President Reagan. The report shows that Israel's
involvement was stimulated by separate overtures in 1985 from Iranian
arms merchant Manucher Ghorbanifar and National Security Council (NSC)
consultant Michael Ledeen, the latter working for National Security
Adviser Robert McFarlane. When Ledeen asked Prime Minister Shimon
Peres for assistance, the Israeli leader agreed to sell weapons to
Iran at America's behest, providing the sale had high-level U.S.
approval.
Before the Israelis would participate, says the
report, they demanded "a clear, express and binding consent by
the U.S. Government." McFarlane told the Congressional committee
he first received President Reagan's approval in July 1985. In August,
Reagan again orally authorized the first sale of weapons to Iran, over
the objections of Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Secretary of
State George Shultz. Because of that deal, Rev. Benjamin Weir, held
captive in Lebanon for 16 months, was released.
When a shipment of HAWK missiles was proposed in
November of that year, Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak
Rabin again demanded specific U.S. approval. According to
McFarlane, the President agreed.
By December 1985, the President had decided future
sales to the Iranians would come directly from U.S. supplies.
According to the committees' report, NSC aide Lt.
Col. Oliver North first used money from the Iran operation to fund the
Nicaraguan resistance in November 1985. He later testified, however,
that the diversion of funds to the Contras was proposed to him by
Ghorbanifar during a meeting in January 1986.
Saudi billionaire oil and arms trader Adnan
Khashoggi said in an interview on ABCTV on December 11, 1986, that
he advanced $1 million to help finance the first arms shipment in the
Iran-Contra arms scandal and put up $4 million for the second
shipment. According to the President's special review board chaired by
former Sen. John Tower, a foreign official (reportedly Saudi King Fahd)
donated $1 million to $2 million monthly from July 1984 to April 1985
for covert financing for the Contras. Saudi Arabia denied aiding the
Nicaraguan rebels, but the New York Times reported the contribution
may have been part of a 1981 secret agreement between Riyadh and
Washington "to aid anticommunist resistance groups around the
sophisticated American AWACS radar planes, according to United States
officials and others familiar with the deal."
The Joint House-Senate Committee praised the
Israeli government for providing detailed chronologies of events based
on relevant documents and interviews with key participants in the
operation. Its report also corroborated the conclusion of the Tower
Commission: "U.S. decision makers made their own decisions and
must bear responsibility for the consequences."
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