Just to follow up for a moment on this morning’s post, there was another portion of Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker piece that warrants some attention.
Hersh explains that as the U.S. sides with Saudi-backed Sunni extremists and puts money in the hands of Lebanese Sunni groups with ties to al Qaeda, they’re relying on a familiar pattern: a Republican White House orchestrating clandestine operations, deals with dubious intermediaries with questionable agendas, and keeping Congress entirely in the dark. Sound familiar?
Two decades ago, the Reagan Administration attempted to fund the Nicaraguan contras illegally, with the help of secret arms sales to Iran. Saudi money was involved in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal, and a few of the players back then — notably Prince Bandar and Elliott Abrams — are involved in today’s dealings.
Iran-Contra was the subject of an informal “lessons learned” discussion two years ago among veterans of the scandal. Abrams led the discussion. One conclusion was that even though the program was eventually exposed, it had been possible to execute it without telling Congress. As to what the experience taught them, in terms of future covert operations, the participants found: “One, you can’t trust our friends. Two, the C.I.A. has got to be totally out of it. Three, you can’t trust the uniformed military, and four, it’s got to be run out of the Vice-President’s office” — a reference to Cheney’s role, the former senior intelligence official said.
Wait, that is what the old guard learned from Iran-Contra? Shouldn’t the actual lesson include some reference to not breaking the law and funneling aid to U.S. enemies?
What’s more, Hersh reports that these clandestine operations contributed to John Negroponte’s decision to resign from the National Intelligence directorship and accept a sub-Cabinet position of Deputy Secretary of State. Given the context, that’s even more discouraging.
The former senior intelligence official also told me that Negroponte did not want a repeat of his experience in the Reagan Administration, when he served as Ambassador to Honduras. “Negroponte said, ‘No way. I’m not going down that road again, with the N.S.C. running operations off the books, with no finding.’ ” (In the case of covert C.I.A. operations, the President must issue a written finding and inform Congress.) Negroponte stayed on as Deputy Secretary of State, he added, because “he believes he can influence the government in a positive way.”
The government consultant said that Negroponte shared the White House’s policy goals but “wanted to do it by the book.” The Pentagon consultant also told me that “there was a sense at the senior-ranks level that he wasn’t fully on board with the more adventurous clandestine initiatives.” It was also true, he said, that Negroponte “had problems with this Rube Goldberg policy contraption for fixing the Middle East.”
Let’s be clear about the lesson here. Negroponte played an active role in secretly arming contra rebels from bases in Honduras, and turned a blind eye to the country’s death squads.
And now he’s looking at the Bush gang and effectively saying, “Whoa, you guys are going too far.”
Something to keep in mind.