ISRAELIS SHIPPED OBSOLETE PARTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404440005-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 29, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: December 1, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404440005-2
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WASHINGTON POST
1 December 1986
Israelis Shipped Obsolete Parts
Incident Angered Iranians, Led to Direct U.S. Role
By Walter Pincus
Wavlnogtnn Past Ste(( Wrnter
eign ministry, and Al Schwimmer,
the founder of Israel Aircraft Indus-
tries.
In February, 500 TOW antitank
missiles were sent to Tehran di-
rectly from U.S. stocks and in late
May parts for the I-Hawks were
sent as a replacement for the re-
jected November shipment, accord-
ing to informed sources.
According to these sources, some
of whom were aware of the secret
shipments at the time, this new
phase of direct U.S. supplies
stripped the White [louse of the
"deniability" it had been able to
maintain last year, when the arms
were brokered by Israelis and taken
from Israeli stocks that were even-
tually replaced by the United
States.
When the direct shipments be-
gan, Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L.
North of the National Security
Council staff was designated as the
White House liaison on the issue
with the Israeli government. Israeli
Prime Minister Shimon Peres se-
lected Amiran Nir, his counterter-
rorism adviser, to be North's coun-
terpart.
The White [louse had been told
by the Israeli middlemen before
Weir was freed that all five living
American hostages would be re-
leased. Despite the setback in se-
curing only one hostage, the Israelis
were told that a shipment of [-Hawk
parts would help to free the remain-
ing four Americans. The Israelis
chose late November for the ship-
ment, according to one source, in
part to mollify the White [louse in
the wake of the arrest of Jonathan
Pollard, who was eventually con-
victed of spying for Israel.
When word of the Iranian anger
over the obsolete Hawk parts be-
came known in Washington, former
national security adviser Robert C.
McFarlane and North, who had
helped arrange the September and
November shipments, "were damn
angry at the Israelis for sending old
equipment," said one source famil-
iar with the transaction. The idea of
sending arms to Tehran as a sign of
Israeli arms brokers substituted obsolete
antiaircraft missile parts in a secret Novem-
ber 1985 arms shipment to Iran, angering
the Iranians and causing the Reagan White
House to begin sending weapons directly
from U.S. military stocks, informed U.S.
and Israeli sources said yesterday.
Iranian military officers had given the
Israelis a list of specific spare parts for a
type of antiaircraft battery known as [(n-
proved Hawk, or [-Hawk, but for reasons
that are not clear they received parts for an
older, less sophisticated version of the
Hawk.
The November shipment was eventually
returned to Israel, and the incident led the
White House to stop using the Israeli arms
brokers as intermediaries in the shipments.
Those Israelis had begun the clandestine
operation with tacit U.S. approval in the fall
of 1985, when two arms shipments to Teh-
ran resulted in the Sept. 14 release of the
Rev. Benjamin Weir, who had been held
hostage in Lebanon by pro-Iranian extrem-
ists.
The White House opted to begin selling
parts directly from the U.S. arsenal for
what became four subsequent shipments
this year. The Iranians paid millions of dol-
lars more than the $12 million value of toe
weapons into a Swiss bank account, and
some of those profits were secretly di-
verted to aid Nicaraguan contras, according
to administration disclosures last week.
In a statement released yesterday, Israeli
businessman Yaacov Nimrodi confirmed
earlier reports that he had organized the
September arms shipments to [ran
as a way "to bring about the free-
dom of the American hostages."
He said Weir was released as a
result of these activities, but that
afterward, "the Americans appar-
ently reached the conclusion that it
is within their ability to continue
efforts for the release of other hos-
tages without my help."
"The negotiations continue([
without me," Nimrodi said. "At the
same time," he added, "my friends
and myself were asked to stop deal-
ing with the subject."
Nimrodi's friends have been iden-
tified as David Kimche, the former
director general of the Israeli for.
arranged CIA help at request of North
U.S. "good faith" had originated in
discussions between McFarlane and
Kimche in the summer of 1985.
White House officials in the past
have said there was a "pause" in the
[ran program about this time last
year because McFarlane, North and
the national security adviser, Vice
Adm. John M. Poindexter, were
changing their "contacts" in [ran.
A Washington source familiar
with the Israeli arms deal said yes-
terday that Nimrodi was not in-
volved in the November shipment
and that the substitution of. old
parts for I-Hawk parts came about
because of a "misunderstanding by
people who didn't know weapons
rather than a desire to cheat the
Iranians."
The failure of the November
shipment. and the subsequent [ran-
ian complaints came at a time when
State and Defense department of-
ficials were trying to convince Pres-
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ident Reagan that he should not use
arms shipments as a means for
opening contacts with Iran or in
seeking help to free the remaining
American hostages.
The incident also took place
while t e arms-to-Iran program was
creating controversy within the
Centra elligence Agency. o n
McMahon, then the CIA's deputy
director, agreed to provide agent
assistance in getting an airplane for
t ehember shipment after an
Unusual ora rec uest from North.
At t e time, according to con-
gressional sources, North told
McMahon that t e plane woulc e
carrying oil-drilling equipment.
CIA
Director i iam Casey was in
China at the time, sources said.
c ahon, according to Sen.
Danie atric oym an _ . ,
approver-Noorth's request but
warned that he would re uire an
order from Reagan to do it again.
"I'll do it once but the next time
. this has to come from the res-
ident m writing," Moynihan. on the
News program "Meet the
Press, quoted McMahon as saying. _
In January, the White House re-
ceived word of the Iranian mili-
tary's unhappiness with the Hawk
shipment, but also a hint that if
newer equipment were furnished,
talks about the hostages could con-
-tinue, according to sources.
On Jan. 17, according to White
House officials, the president
signed a secret intelligence order
authorizing the shipment of U.S.
arms to Iran as part of a covert pro-
gram to open contacts and seek
help in obtaining the hostages' re-
lease.
In February, according to Attor-
ney General Edwin Meese III, the
November shipment of old Hawk
parts was returned to Israel. In the
same month, according to informed
sources, the first U.S. shipment of
500 TOW antitank missiles went
from the United States to Israel and
then to Iran. All of this year's ship-
ments were. routed from the United
States through Israel, and in at
least some cases were flown circu-
itously from Israel through Europe
to Iran.
Also in February, the CIA's
MMc ahon quit without explanation.
He now works or the Lock eed
for. -
On May 28, McFarlane, North
and two others landed in Tehran in
a plane carrying parts for the I-
Hawks. Iran had the weapons from
the 1970s, when it was a close ally
of the United States and before rev-
olution swept out the shah and
brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Kho-
meini to power. McFarlane has told
friends that he expected all of the
remaining hostages to be freed be-
fore his arrival.
The united States sent two more
shipments totaling 1,500 TOW mis-
siles in August and late October.
Two more hostages, the Rev. Law-
rence M. Jenco and David P. Jacob-
sen, were released. In September
and October, three more Americans
were kidnaped in Beirut and report-
edly are held by pro-Iranian ex-
tremists.
The idea of sending arms to Iran
to cultivate contacts within the
Khomeini regime began early in the
Reagan administration, according to
sources. In 1981, then-Secretary of,
State Alexander M. Haig Jr. gave
tacit approval for an Israeli proposal
that arms be sent to build contacts
within the Iranian military. The Is-
raeli idea, according to Moshe
Arens, ambassador to Washington
at the time, was to encourage the
military leadership to overthrow
the Khomeini regime.
No moderates in the armed
forces were uncovered, Arens said
recently, and U.S. support ended
when Haig was convinced by his
staff that the arms shipments were
contrary to U.S. interests.
For the next five years, until
Nov. 4, when the first reports of
McFarlane's trip to Tehran ap-
peared, the Reagan administration
and the president personally em-
phasized that the Khomeini regime
supported terrorism and that the
United States would never pay ran-
som to extremists holding U.S. hos-
tages. A strong corollary to these
antiterrorism policies was Opera-
tion Staunch, the worldwide U.S.
effort to enlist other countries in
the embargo on arms shipments to
Iran and Iraq as a means for ending
the war.
Meese has reportedly told con-
gressional investigators that all of
the funneling of Iranian arms money
to aid the Nicaraguan rebels oc-
curred this year, beginning with the
February shipment. He also told
them that none of the profits from
this October's shipment went to the
contras, because by then Congress
had approved $100 million in mil-
itary and other aid to the rebels.
a.
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