A-Infos (en) CIA Worked with Suspected Drg Traffickers, Report Admits

[Tom Burghardt <tburghardt@igc.apc.org>]

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   C.I.A. WORKED WITH SUSPECTED DRUG TRAFFICKERS, REPORT ADMITS
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   THE NEW YORK TIMES
   July 17, 1998
   http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/washpol/cia-contras.html
   By JAMES RISEN
 
     WASHINGTON -- The Central Intelligence Agency continued to
work with about two dozen Nicaraguan rebels and their supporters
during the 1980s despite allegations that they were trafficking
in drugs, according to a classified study by the CIA.
     
     The new study has found that the CIA's decision to keep
these paid agents, or to continue dealing with them in some
less-formal relationship, was made by top officials at the
agency's headquarters in Langley, Va., in the midst of the war
waged by the CIA-backed Contras against Nicaragua's leftist
Sandinista government.
     
     The new report by the CIA's inspector general criticizes
agency officials' actions at the time for the inconsistent and
sometimes sloppy manner in which they investigated -- or chose
not to investigate -- the allegations, which were never
substantiated by the CIA.
     
     The inspector general's report, which has not yet been
publicly released, also concludes that there is no evidence that
any CIA officials were involved in drug trafficking with Contra
figures.
     
     "The fundamental finding of the report is that there is no
information that the CIA or CIA employees ever conspired with any
Contra organizations or individuals involved with the Contras for
purposes of drug trafficking," one U.S. intelligence official
said.
     
     The new report is the long-delayed second volume of the
CIA's internal investigation into possible connections between
the Contras and Central American drug traffickers. The
investigation was originally prompted by a controversial 1996
series in The San Jose Mercury-News, which asserted that a "dark
alliance" among the CIA, the Contras and drug traffickers had
helped finance the Contra war with millions of dollars in profits
from drug smuggling.
     
     The second volume of the report dismisses those specific
charges, as did the first volume.
     
     The Mercury-News series alleged that this alliance created a
drug trafficking network that was the first to introduce crack
cocaine into South Central Los Angeles. The series prompted an
enormous outcry, especially among blacks, many of whom said they
saw it as confirmation of a government-backed conspiracy to keep
blacks dependent and impoverished.
     
     The Mercury-News subsequently admitted that the series was
flawed and reassigned the reporter.
     
     In the declassified version of the CIA's first volume, the
agency said the Mercury-News charges were baseless and mentioned
drug dealers who had nothing to do with the CIA.
     
     But John Deutch, the director of central intelligence at the
time, had also asked the inspector general to conduct a broader
inquiry to answer unresolved questions about the Contra program
and drug trafficking that had not been raised in the Mercury-News
series. Frederick Hitz, then the CIA's inspector general, decided
to issue a second, much larger report to deal with those broader
issues.
     
     Many of the allegations in the second volume parallel
charges that first surfaced in a 1987 Senate investigation. The
CIA is much more reluctant to publicly release the complete text
of the approximately 500-page second volume than it was of the
first, because it deals directly with Contras the CIA did work
with.
     
     According to the report, CIA officials involved in the
Contra program were so focused on the fight against the leftist
Sandinista regime that they gave relatively low priority to
collecting information about the possible drug involvement of
individuals in the Contra army. The report concluded that CIA
officers did report on drug trafficking by the Contras, but that
there were no clear guidelines given to CIA officers in the field
about how intensively they should investigate or act upon the
allegations.
 
     In all, the CIA received allegations of drug involvement
against about 50 figures in the Contra movement over the course
of the war against the Sandinistas, according to the report.
Those allegations were leveled against members of the Contra army
as well as its air transport and support networks. Some of the
allegations may have been specious, the result of Sandinista
propaganda, while other charges may have been more substantive,
U.S. intelligence officials said.
     
     It could not be determined from the CIA's records how many
of those 50 cases were fully investigated by the agency. But of
those, the CIA continued to work with about two dozen figures
alleged to be involved in the drug trade, according to U.S.
intelligence officials familiar with the report. They said the
report found that the agency was unable to either prove or
disprove the charges, or did not conduct adequate investigations
into the allegations.
     
     U.S. intelligence officials, who provided information about
the report, declined to identify the individual Contras who were
the targets of the drug allegations. But they did say that while
most of the charges were leveled against individuals, the report
found that drug allegations had been made against one Contra
organization, a group known as 15th of September. That group was
formed in 1980 and was disbanded in January 1982, in the early
stages of the Contra war.
     
     The CIA's decision to classify this second volume has
already been met with criticism on Capitol Hill. Sen. John Kerry,
D-Mass., who led a 1987 congressional inquiry into allegations of
Contra drug connections, wrote a letter Thursday to CIA Director
George Tenet asking that the report be immediately declassified.
     
     Kerry, who has reviewed the second volume of the inspector
general's report, added that he believes CIA officials involved
in the Contra program did not make a serious effort to fully
investigate the allegations of drug involvement by the Contras.
     
     "Some of us in Congress at the time, in 1985, 1986, were
calling for a serious investigation of the charges, and CIA
officials did not join in that effort," Kerry said. "There was a
significant amount of stonewalling. I'm afraid that what I read
in the report documents the degree to which there was a lack of
interest in making sure the laws were being upheld."
     
     CIA officials notified Congress at the time of most of the
"significant" cases in which the agency decided to continue doing
business with those Contras accused of dealing in drugs, the
report states, but it does not detail the exact nature of the
Congressional notification.
     
     One former CIA official familiar with the Contra program
disputed the notion that agency officials did not take the drug
charges seriously at the time.
     
     "You investigate all of them, and when they were credible,
and when we could substantiate them, we would certainly take
action," the former official said. "But wild or unproven
allegations would not by themselves be enough to displace someone
from the organization. Otherwise, we would have had no discipline
or morale in these organizations."
     
     Allegations of drug involvement on the part of the Contras
was hardly the only time that a group connected to the CIA has
been accused of dealing in narcotics. The agency's local allies
in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, and in Afghanistan
after the Soviet invasion of 1979, also were accused of drug
trafficking.
 
     Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
 
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