How Ilhan Omar Nailed Elliot Abrams for Iran-Contra Lie
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment
14 February 19
Ilhan Omar (D-MN) grilled Elliot Abrams yesterday, holding his feet to the fire
about his having lied to Congress (to two counts of which which he pleaded
guilty) and about his support for far right wing forces in Central America
responsible for massacres (forces Abrams characterizes as “democratic,”
confusing oppressive elite hegemony with rule of the people).
Omar as a Somali refugee has strong views about the history of US imperial
interventions in and destabilization of countries of the global South. That
sort of seasoned anti-imperialism grounded in hard personal experience is
almost never voiced in the halls of Congress. But on the face of it, it is
hardly alien to the American experience. Mark Twain was scathing on the US
invasion of the Philippines (a cruel and disastrous episode actively celebrated
by the Neoconservatives). It is now hard to remember that “empire” was a dirty
word to Americans, proud of their egalitarian republicanism, right up until the
Federal government went imperial in 1898. Abrams in contrast glories in empire,
having been part of the Project for a New American Century that plotted out our
current Forever Quagmire and still cannot see it for the white elephant it is.
Abrams’ ability to hold high office and help shape US government policy despite
decades of duplicity and complicity in the worst war crimes– including the Iraq
War, which killed hundreds of thousands and displaced 4 million and
destabilized the region, and ongoing crimes against humanity in Occupied
Palestine– tells you all you need to know about how truly corrupt the American
political establishment is.
When George W. Bush brought Abrams back into government I was shocked. I asked
a congressman I knew how Congress had ever allowed such a thing, since everyone
on the Hill in the late ’80s had sworn they’d never allow Abrams to hold high
office ever again. The congressman said ruefully that there had been so much
turnover that many on the Hill by 2004 didn’t any longer know who Abrams was or
that he had pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. We are governed in a fit of
absent-mindedness.
Abrams complained when Rep. Omar began by pointing out that he had been
convicted of lying to Congress, because she said it was not a question and did
not let him respond. He pleaded guilty to the charge. He was strongly censured
for it by the Appeals Court of Washington, DC. I mean, he is a bent lawyer that
the Better Business Bureau couldn’t recommend to clients, but he gets to tell
the Venezuelan people how they will be governed.
Let’s just review the legal case against Abrams.
He was Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs 1985-89 at the
Height of the Iran-Contra Crime. Abrams was part of a cabal in the
administration of Ronald Reagan that funneled money to the far right wing
“Contras” of Nicaragua who were fighting a dirty war against the Left in that
country. Contras were guilty of major crimes, At the time Abrams was
championing them, it was publicly known that they were guilty of “a distinct
pattern” of murders, kidnapings, assaults and torture of civilians.”
The Congressional Boland Amendment of 1982 tried to stop Reagan from assisting
the Contras militarily or in any other way. The Iran-Contra Crooks decided to
get around that prohibition by raising money overseas. Fundraising outside the
government was permitted in a 1986 amendment, but not for arms.
The Iran-Contra Crime Gang of which Abrams was a part raised money for Contra
guns in three main ways. One was that they did fundraising with conservative
Muslim states that opposed the international Left. So they got money from high
Saudi officials via Adnan Khashoggi, an arms dealer, and they also got money
from Brunei.
The second was that they sold $100 million of US arms through intermediaries,
including Israelis, to Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran. These sales were illegal and
unconstitutional and involve abetting a designated terrorist state.
The third is harder to prove, but there is substantial evidence that the Gang
encouraged the Contras to engage in drug smuggling so as to raise money to buy
their own arms. The drugs were sold at least in part in the United States.
It is hard to know how much to read into the document, but one exists showing
that Abrams sent $300,000 to a known American drug smuggler in Miami to fly
“supplies” (arms?) to the Contras, and presumably to ferry drugs back out,
though that hasn’t been proved.
The National Security Archive sprang this document from the Reagan
administration rogues’ gallery: “On February 10, 1986, Owen (“TC”) wrote North
(this time as “BG,” for “Blood and Guts”) regarding a plane being used to carry
“humanitarian aid” to the contras that was previously used to transport drugs.
The plane belongs to the Miami-based company Vortex, which is run by Michael
Palmer, one of the largest marijuana traffickers in the United States. Despite
Palmer’s long history of drug smuggling, which would soon lead to a Michigan
indictment on drug charges, Palmer receives over $300,000.00 from the
Nicaraguan Humanitarian Aid Office (NHAO) — an office overseen by Oliver North,
Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Elliott Abrams, and CIA
officer Alan Fiers — to ferry supplies to the contras”
Also, Abrams personally went and lobbied the Sultan of Brunei for $10 million,
which he received. He gave the bank number to Col. Oliver North, the
conspirator in chief, so that he could send the money to the Contras, but North
is such a sad sack screw-up that he actually wired the $10 million to the wrong
Swiss Bank account.
After the events of 1985-89, Abrams was pardoned by George H. W. Bush. He was
however forbidden to practice law for one year, given that he is a big fat
liar. He appealed that ruling on the grounds that his pardon should have erased
the crime. A panel of judges on the DC Court of Appeals found that the pardon
did most certainly not erase the crime, but there was one judge who was
disinclined to discipline Abrams, so the others made do with issuing him a
severe censure. It is sort of like, if Abrams owned a toaster factory and you
needed a toaster, they were warning you not to buy a toaster from him because
his toasters use substandard materials and will burn you because he is corrupt.
In the course of their deliberations, the judges of the DC Court of Appeals
specified three incidents where Abrams lied to Congress:
“On October 5, 1986, an American aircraft which was carrying supplies to the
Contras was shot down over Nicaragua. The downing of the plane, and the
capture of its pilot, led to public allegations that notwithstanding the Boland
Amendment, the government was continuing to arm and otherwise assist the
Contras. As a result, Abrams was called to appear before several
Congressional committees to explain the government’s position.
On October 10, 1986, Abrams testified as follows before the United States
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations:
In the last two years, since Congress cut off support to the resistance, this
supply system has kept them alive. It is not our supply system. It is one
that grew up after we were forbidden from supplying the resistance, and we have
been kind of careful not to get closely involved with it and to stay away from
it ․
I think that people who are supplying the Contras believe that we generally
approve of what they are doing-and they are right. We do generally approve of
what they are doing, because they are keeping the Contras alive while Congress
makes its decision, which each House has separately, though obviously final
legislation is not yet ready.
So, the notion that we are generally in favor of people helping the Contras is
correct.
We do not encourage people to do this. We don’t round up people, we don’t
write letters, we don’t have conversations, we don’t tell them to do this, we
don’t ask them to do it. But I think it is quite clear, from the attitude of
the administration, the attitude of the administration is that these people are
doing a very good thing, and if they think they are doing something that we
like, then, in a general sense, they are right. But that is without any
encouragement and coordination from us, other than a public speech by the
President, that kind of thing, on the public record.[2]
At the time Abrams so testified, he knew that Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North
had engaged in conversations with people who were supplying the Contras, and
that North had asked and encouraged these people to supply the Contras.
Abrams concealed from the Senate Committee his knowledge of these conversations
and of North’s support for and coordination of the assistance being provided to
the Contras.
Four days later, on October 14, 1986, Abrams gave the following testimony
before the United States House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence:
[THE CHAIRMAN]: Do you know if any foreign government is helping to supply the
Contras? There is a report in the L.A. paper, for example, that the Saudis
are.
[MR. GEORGE]: [3] No sir, we have no intelligence of that.
[MR. ABRAMS]: I can only speak on that question for the last fifteen months
when I have been in this job, and that story about the Saudis to my knowledge
is false. I personally cannot tell you about pre-1985, but in 1985-1986, when
I have been around, no.
[THE CHAIRMAN]: Is it also false with respect to other governments as well?
[MR. ABRAMS]: Yes, it is also false.
(Emphasis in information.) In fact, Abrams had personally met with a
representative of the Sultan of Brunei to solicit the Sultan’s assistance, and
he was aware that the Sultan had agreed to provide ten million dollars to the
Contras. Abrams had also provided the Sultan’s representative with a Swiss
bank account number so that funds for the Contras could be deposited into that
account.
On November 25, 1986, Abrams testified before the United States Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence. Earlier on that day, Attorney General Edwin C.
Meese had disclosed at a press conference that the proceeds of sales of arms to
Iran had been diverted to the Contras. Abrams stated that
I was, until today, fairly confident that there was no foreign government
contributing to this. But I knew nothing, still don’t know anything, about
the mechanisms by which money was transferred from private groups that have
been raising it, to the Contras.
(Emphasis added.) Once again, Abrams concealed his knowledge regarding the
Brunei solicitation, and he misled the Senate Committee with respect to
contributions that had been made to the Contras by private organizations and by
a foreign government.”
Did Abrams know about the North arms sales to Khomeini? Was he involved
personally? Did he lend material assistance to a terrorist regime? Did he
facilitate Contra drug smuggling? Did he turn a blind eye to the atrocities
committed by the Contra death squads and by the far rightwing government of El
Salvador?
What we do know is that Abrams lied with the specific intent of hiding from
Congress massive violations of the Boland Amendment.
I don’t know what he was going to say to Ilhan Omar in response to her having
rebuked him for the lying.
Whatever it was would almost certainly have been more lies.
Email This Page
e-max.it: your social media marketing partner
