Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Bush Administration Uses CIA To Stonewall Iraqgate Investigation

Bush Administration Uses CIA To Stonewall Iraqgate Investigation
by Jack Colhoun 
In House floor speeches, Rep. Henry Gonzalez has documented how pre-Gulf
War U.S. policy helped Iraq develop weapons of mass destruction. But
President George Bush, taking a page from one of the darkest chapters of
the Nixon presidency, has enlisted the CIA as part of his campaign to
derail the Texas Democrat's Iraqgate investigation. The CIA is
investigating Gonzalez for revealing allegedly secret intelligence
information, which it claims has harmed U.S. national security
interests.
Involving the CIA in domestic political affairs is one of the few
remaining taboos in U.S. politics, and so far, Bush has gotten away
scot-free with it. His predecessor, Richard Nixon, was forced to resign
a few days after the infamous "smoking gun" tape revealed that he had
instructed White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman to tell CIA
Director Richard Helms to refuse to cooperate with the FBI's
investigation of Watergate.
While the media and the Washington pundits have duly reported the CIA's
investigation of Gonzalez, they have failed to note the resemblance
between the way Bush and Nixon instigated domestic involvement of the
CIA to protect their administrations. Nor have the media explored the
ominous political implications of Bush-the first former CIA director
elected president- using the Agency to discredit his political foes.
The House Banking Committee, which Gonzalez chairs, began looking into
pre-Gulf War U.S. policy toward Iraq in 1990. "We have determined that
your statements in the Congressional Record on July 7, 1992, included
information from a Top Secret compartmented and particularly sensitive
document dated September 4, 1989, to which we gave your staff access,"
CIA Director Robert Gates wrote in a July 24 letter to Gonzalez.
"Because of the sources and methods underlying that information, I will
ask for a damage assessment to determine the impact of the disclosure."
Adm. William O. Studeman, acting CIA director while Gates was abroad,
informed Gonzalez in a July 28 letter that the CIA's Office of Security
would also assess Gonzalez's House floor speeches of July 21 and July
27, 1992. Studeman claimed that Gonzalez revealed other Top Secret
intelligence information in these speeches. The maverick
Mexican-American lawmaker from San Antonio, Texas, angrily denied the
CIA's charges. "Your insinuation that I have revealed Top Secret,
compartmented information is inflammatory and with- out merit," Gonzalez
declared in a July 30 letter to Gates. "In fact, I have taken great
pains to ensure that all information I have placed in the Congressional
Record is of the broadest nature and readily available from public
sources."
Gonzalez added he was "extremely disappointed that the CIA was allowing
itself to be used to build a smokescreen around the president's flawed
policies. The CIA should be above involving itself in the political
problems of the administration." Gonzalez also charged that since
spring, the CIA has not cooperated with the House Banking Committee.
Attorney General William Barr, in a May 15, 1992, letter to the Texas
Democrat, announced that the administration would no longer turn over
classified documents to Gonzalez's committee without "specific
assurances" that he won't make the information public.
Gonzalez, who has made public more classified U.S. doc- uments than
anyone since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the "Pentagon Papers," believes Bush
is using the CIA to taint the Iraqgate investigation. Again the parallel
is clear. In 1971, Nixon's White House "plumbers," led by CIA operative
E. Howard Hunt, launched a campaign to discredit former Pentagon analyst
Ellsberg and even broke into his psychiatrist's office to search for
incriminating dirt.
Meanwhile, Republicans on Capitol Hill escalated their vilification
campaign against Gonzalez. House Minority Leader Robert Michel (R-Ill.)
introduced a resolution in the House on August 4 that calls on the House
Ethics Committee to investigate Gonzalez's release of documents, citing
the CIA probe of the 32-year House veteran. Michel charged that Gonzalez
has violated the House code of conduct, but he failed to note that
lawmakers who disclose classified information on the House or Senate
floor are exempted from the federal law against making intelligence
secrets public. Although the attacks against Gonzalez continue, the
growing body of evidence he is disclosing makes it increasingly
difficult for the Bush administration to dismiss the allegations. And
that, Gonzalez believes, is why Bush unleashed the CIA.
THE SUBSTANCE OF GONZALEZ'S CHARGES
Gonzalez rejects Bush's contention that U.S. policy was designed "to
encourage Saddam Hussein to join the family of nations." "The Bush
administration," Gonzalez charged in a July 27 speech, "sent U.S.
technology to the Iraqi military and to many Iraqi military factories,
despite over- whelming evidence showing that Iraq intended to use the
technology in its clandestine nuclear, chemical, biological, and
long-range missile programs." He quot- ed U.S. intelligence documents
which show the admini- stration knew that the Cleveland, Ohio, Matrix
Churchill Corporation and the Atlanta branch of the Italian Banca
Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) were the cor- nerstones of a secret Iraqi
arms technology procurement network in the U.S.
The administration's pro-Baghdad policy, spelled out in National
Security Directive-26, adopted on October 2, 1989, was based on
promoting U.S. trade with Iraq. The Commerce Department routinely
approved applications from U.S. companies for the export to Iraq of
"dual-use" technology, which has civilian and military applications.
"While the [Bush] policy did not permit the sale of bombs or something
of that nature that would blow up," Gonzalez declared in a July 21
speech, "it clearly allowed the sale of the equipment needed to make
them. The administration knew what Saddam Hussein was doing.... The head
of Iraq's ambitious military industrialization efforts was Saddam's
brother-in-law, ...Hussein Kamil, who directed the flow of over $2
billion in BNL commercial loans to various high-profile Iraqi weapons
projects."
The progressive Texas Democrat contends that at a No- vember 8, 1989,
meeting, the Bush administration used a secret CIA report in an internal
battle. The issue was whether to provide Iraq with $1 billion in loan
guarantees to buy U.S. farm exports issued by the Department of
Agriculture's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). Previously, the
Export-Import Bank and other federal agencies opposed full funding for
Iraq because its deteriorating economy made Baghdad a poor credit risk.
"This time the CCC program for Iraq was approved," Gonzalez said in a
July 7 speech. "The CIA report shows that unless the full $1 billion CCC
program was approved, the president's goal of improving relations with
Saddam Hussein as spelled out in NSD-26 would be frustrated."
BNL-Atlanta made financial arrangements for the CCC program for Iraq.
The CIA report, Gonzalez pointed out, "indicates that BNL loans were
used to fund Iraq's clandestine military procurement network...in the
U.S. and Europe. The report indicates that several of the BNL-financed
front companies in the network were secretly procuring technology for
Iraq's missile programs and nuclear, biological and chemical weapons
programs."
The House Judiciary Committee, after several hearings, called on Barr
July 9, 1992, to appoint an independent counsel to investigate Iraqgate.
This move had been boosted when Frank DeGeorge, inspector general for
the Commerce Department, admitted at a June 23, 1992, House Judiciary
Committee hearing that Commerce Department officials altered information
on 66 export licenses for Iraq which were turned over to congressional
investigators. The export licenses were changed from "VEHICLES DESIGNED
FOR MILITARY USE" to "COMMERCIAL UTILITY CARGO TRUCKS."
But Barr took a hard line when, on August 1- for the first time since
the Ethics in Government Act created the independent councel
mechanism--he rejected a request for an appointment. Instead, the
Justice Department, he asserted, would continue its investigation of
Iraqgate. Barr called the charges outlined by the House Judiciary
Committee too "vague" to justify an independent counsel.
"First the attorney general denounces and obstructs congressional
investigations and now blocks inquiries by a special counsel," Gonzalez
responded the same day. "Barr is playing a dangerous game in a desperate
effort to protect the Bush administration."
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destruction.
*ROTFL*
-Stefan