Arms to Iran to Hold Hostages

[OutofDate1980]

The evidence indicates that Reagan made a deal with Iran to hold on to the hostages till after the 1980's election for arms. The former CIA director, Vice-President candidate and future President, Bush 1, used his CIA contacts to facilitate the deal.

American's wonder why Iran holds a grudge against the U.S.

A CIA Hand in an American ‘Coup’? | Consortiumnews

"It has taken six decades for the CIA to formally acknowledge that it undertook a coup against Iran’s elected government in 1953, but the spy agency might never concede that some of its officers joined in a political strike against a sitting U.S. president in 1980, yet that is what the evidence now indicates.

As with the ouster of Iran’s Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, the motive for sabotaging the reelection of President Jimmy Carter in 1980 appears to have flowed from fears about the direction of the Cold War, with American hardliners justifying their actions based on an assessment that Carter, like Mossadegh, was a dangerous idealist."

 

[JohnLaird]

American's wonder why Iran holds a grudge against the U.S.

Please don't assume we are all the same. Example...Obama effectively represents the entire country even though he lost the vote of the southern half.

It's quite simple really...if Iran had its way they would have wiped Israel off the face of the earth a long time ago. Israel is a very important strategic ally in the Middle East...therefore Iran holds a grudge by default.

 

[saptech]

The evidence indicates that Reagan made a deal with Iran to hold on to the hostages till after the 1980's election for arms. The former CIA director, Vice-President candidate and future President, Bush 1, used his CIA contacts to facilitate the deal.

Thus the birth of the crack cocaine epidemic in the USA.

On December 8, 1982, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed the "Boland Amendment" to the 1983 military appropriations bill stating that none of the appropriated defense funds could be used to "train, arm, or support persons not members of the regular army for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua." This amendment made it illegal for the CIA to continue funding its anti-Sandanista army, which by then was calling itself the FDN (Nicaraguan Democratic Forces), but was better known as the Contras.

After passage of the Boland amendment, the Contras desperately needed a new source of funds. (This was several years before Oliver North set up his Iran connection to divert money from arms sales to the Contras.) According to a year-long investigation by the SAN JOSE (California) MERCURY NEWS based on court records, recently declassified documents, undercover audio tapes, and files retrieved via the Freedom of Information Act, the FDN solved its problem by opening the first pipeline from the Colombian cocaine cartels to black gangs --the Crips and the Bloods --on the streets of Los Angeles.


Oliver North, a military aide to the United States National Security Council (NSC), proposed a new plan for selling arms to Iran, which included two major adjustments: instead of selling arms through Israel, the sale was to be direct, and a portion of the proceeds would go to Contras, or Nicaraguan paramilitary fighters waging guerrilla warfare against the democratically-elected Sandinista government, at a markup. North proposed a $15 million markup, while contracted arms broker Ghorbanifar added a 41% markup of his own. Other members of the NSC were in favor of North's plan; with large support, Poindexter authorized it without notifying President Reagan, and it went into effect. At first, the Iranians refused to buy the arms at the inflated price because of the excessive markup imposed by North and Ghorbanifar. They eventually relented, and in February 1986, 1,000 TOW missiles were shipped to the country. From May to November 1986, there were additional shipments of miscellaneous weapons and parts.

Both the sale of weapons to Iran, and the funding of the Contras, attempted to circumvent not only stated administration policy, but also the Boland Amendment. Administration officials argued that regardless of the Congress restricting the funds for the Contras, or any affair, the President (or in this case the administration) could carry on by seeking alternative means of funding such as private entities and foreign governments.