THE FRUITS OF IGNORANCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000301890033-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 33
• Publication Date: November 26, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301890033-8
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WASHINGTON POST
26 November 1986
Rowland Evans and Robert Novak
The Fruits of Ignorance
The secret diversion of funds from
Iranian arms shipments to Nicaraguan
contras, unknown to key officials until
last weekend, reflects a level of igno-
rance in the administration threaten-
ing grave consequences for the Mid.
east
Even if deposed National Security
Adviser John Poindexter knew about '
the contra connection, he was in the
dark about other aspects of the secret
deal. That ignorance explains why
some in the administration and con-
gressional probers now fear Iran may
have acquired the military power to
sweep the Middle East with its fanati-
cal Islamic revolution, a potential di-
saster for both the West and the
Arabs.
In a telephone briefing of Senate
Majority Leader Bob Dole that Dole's
office said occurred Nov. 14, Adm.
Poindexter stated what he obviously
believed to be true: about 1,000 TOW
antitank missiles had been shipped to
Iran. But on Nov. 21, CIA Director
r William Casey was quoted by House
Democratic Leader Jim Wright as
saying that at least 2,008 TOW mis-
siles, more than twice Poindexter's
total, had gone to Iran.
"It will be months before anyone
has the facts," an administration offi-
cial told us. "Today, we can't even
guess because the record is so full of
blank spots."
That may not be all that unusual for
clandestine operations run out of Cas-
ey's CIA. But for an operation osten-
sibly controlled by Poindexter's Na-
tional Security Council staff, it is
regarded by leaders of both parties on
Capitol Hill as wholly unacceptable.
Beyond that lies this question being
asked at the highest levels here: Did
the end of America's antiterrorist Ira-
nian arms embargo inadvertently
open the floodgates for enough so-
phisticated weapons from Israel and
other countries to turn the tide of
battle in the Iran-Iraq war? The har-
der next question is whether Presi-
dent Reagan, in the event Iraqi
strongman Saddam Hussein is top-
pled, could stop the Islamic revolu-
tionary tide from sweeping the Arab
Middle East.
Such a dynamic transformation of
the Middle East, once indelibly linked
to the West, would set off political
explosions as far off as oil-shy Japan
and produce a policy upheaval
throughout the West.
Diplomats working for Secretary of
State George Shultz insist privately
that the question of escalating arms
shipments was apparently never fully
considered by Robert C. McFarlane,
the originator of the Iranian arms
deal. When new NSC adviser Poin-
dexter was bequeathed the
undercover program from McFarlane
last Dec. 4, sources say, he was not
fully informed by mid-level operatives
who ran the program day-to-day.
They also question whether Poindex-
ter has been kept completely briefed
since then on every facet of the deal.
There is growing evidence that
Iran is making good use of its new
weapons?shipments far larger than
what President Reagan described on
Nov. 13 as "modest deliveries (that]
could easily fit into a single cargo
plane." For the first time, newly
armed Iranian patrol boats are mak-
ing night attacks on coastal vessels
flying the flags of small Persian Gulf
nations. This is viewed as a muscle-
flexing maneuver to convince these
pro-Western, anti-Iranian oil states
that they will have to come to terms
with Iran sooner or later.
U.S. Hawk missiles, apparently
shipped to Iran from both the United
States and Israel, have drastically cut
back on Iraqi air attacks against Iran's
oil lifeline at Kharg Island. As we
write, there has been no attack on the
loading platforms at Kharg for more
than a week. The oil terminal is es-
sential for Iran to earn hard currency
to pay for the new arms supplies it
has been buying since the U.S. em-
bargo ended.
More ominous for the White House
and its Western allies is the soft
public treatment by the Ayatollah
Khomeini for the faction in Tehran
that arranged the arms shipments.
Instead of demanding a firing squad,
or at least a thousand lashes, Khomei-
ni has successfully protected the lead-
er of that faction. Hasheimi Rafsanja-
ni, the speaker of Parliament.
Rafsanjani appears to be one of the
most important if not the leading
anti-Iraqi war hawk. That raises the
disturbing question whether Khomei-
ni himself, and not so-called Islamic
"moderates," has been' the real?if
shadow?power behind the U.S. arms
deal, sucking the "Great Satin" into a
war-winning "scam."
But within the Reagan administra-
tion, the Iran arms deal appears to
have been so highly compartmental-
ized that these long-range dangers to
American interests never got the
hearing they deserved. They were
submerged under the effort of the
-moment to extract American hos-
tages with arms and at the same time
to open a channel to "moderates."
Shultz, understandably outraged by
the collapse of his antiterrorist policy,
appears to have shut his eyes to the
entire enterprise. His silent invoca-
tion of a plague on the White House
for arming a terrorist state effectively
barred expert policy guidance from
his own specialists, who saw the dan-
ger.
If the flood of arms now unleashed
by ending the U.S. embargo does
result in Hussein's fall, Reagan's
present political problem will be
dwarfed. He will face a resurgent
Islam sworn to destroy Israel and to
obliterate every Western vestige
from what it regards as holy Islamic
01986, Newb America Syndicate
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/09/25 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000301890033-8