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WSWS : News Analysis : North America
Iran-Contra gangsters resurface in Bush administration
By Patrick Martin
1 August 2001
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The Bush administration appealed to Senate Democrats July 27 to
move ahead with the confirmation of two top-level diplomatic
nominees whose appointments have been delayed because of their
role in defending right-wing dictatorships and death squads in
Central America.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-
Del) said through a spokesman that a hearing for John Negroponte,
nominated for US ambassador to the United Nations, would be held
as early as next week. No hearing has yet been set for Otto Reich,
nominated for assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere
affairs.
Negroponte and Reich are two of the three Bush administration
appointees with direct operational roles in the Central American
counterinsurgency campaigns of the 1980s. The third is Elliott
Abrams, named as director of the office for democracy, human
rights and international operations at the National Security Council,
a White House position which is not subject to Senate
confirmation. Abrams was convicted of lying to Congress about the
Iran-Contra affair, but was later pardoned by Bushs father in 1992.
Negroponte was US ambassador to Honduras during the years
when the right-wing Nicaraguan Contra forces were based in
southern Honduras, just across the border from Nicaragua,
supplied and armed illegally by the Reagan administration. Abrams
was assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs
during that period and worked closely with Oliver North in
organizing the illegal arms supplies to the Contras. Reich headed
the Office of Public Diplomacy, a State Department agency which
illegally funded pro-Contra propaganda both in the US and
internationally.
The convicted liar
The selection of Abrams is the most provocative appointment by
Bush since his nomination of John Ashcroft as attorney general.
Appearing frequently at press forums and congressional committee
hearings in the 1980s, Abrams was one of the most belligerent
defenders of Reagans policy of arming the Contra fascists, who
waged terrorist assaults on the Nicaraguan population for nearly a
decade, killing an estimated 10,000 people.
As Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory recalled, Members
of Congress remember Abramss snarling appearances at
committee hearings, defending death squads and dictators,
denying massacres, lying about illegal US activities in support of
the Nicaraguan contras. Abrams sneered at his critics for their
blindness and naiveté, or called them vipers.
Abrams was not merely a mouthpiece or apologist, but an active
collaborator in illegal actions which led to thousands of deaths and
widespread devastation. He was a regular participant in meetings of
CIA, National Security Council and State Department officials who
planned the arming of the Contras. When Congress adopted two
successive versions of the Boland amendment prohibiting such
arms supplies, the operation continued in defiance of the law, at
Reagans direction, with Lt. Col. Oliver North, an NSC official,
taking charge.
As the top Reagan foreign policy official for Latin America, Abrams
repeatedly testified before Congress under oath that the
government was complying with the Boland amendment and that
only humanitarian aid was being supplied to the Contras. Given
his operational role, Abrams was neither misled by other officials
nor lying to protect others. Like Oliver North, he was lying to
Congress about illegal activities in which he was a direct personal
participant.
After four years of public vituperation against the investigation of the
Iran-Contra affair, Abrams was finally run to earth in 1991, pleading
guilty to two misdemeanor counts of lying to Congress under oath,
in order to avoid felony charges. White House spokesman Ari
Fleischer called Abrams an outstanding diplomat and said the
president considered his legal troubles a matter of the past.
It is a measure of the cynicism of the Bush administration and
congressional Republicans that Abrams could be appointed to a
high position with his record. They were willing to impeach Clinton
as president for lying under oath about Monica Lewinsky, but no
such standard applies to lies about an illegal US war which killed
thousands of innocent people. Abrams, a collaborator with death
squads, is now to be put in a high position with responsibility for
addressing human rights issues!
The anti-Castro fanatic
Negroponte and Reich are equally odious figures, although less
well known to the public because they did not become Iran-Contra
defendants. Otto Reich, who left Cuba in 1960 at the age of 15, is a
favorite of the fascistic anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami. His
appointment was sponsored by the two Cuban-American
congressmen from Miami, and by Senator Jesse Helms, chairman
of the
