U.S. - NICARAGUA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605040037-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 4, 2012
• Sequence Number: 37
• Publication Date: March 5, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT,,~~ ,
L Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/04 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605040037-0
~~ 5 March 1986
U. S . - NICARAGUA ~~~
BY ROBERT PARRY
WASHINGTON
President Reagan, urging congressional support. for his proposed-aid to
.Nicaraguan rebels, said today-the money and material should be sent "so we will
never have to send our own American boys."
. Reagan, speaking shortly before the first congressional votes scheduled on
his plan to give the Contra rebels X100 million in aid, said Congress faced "a
historic decision,"
"If we give them .the aid they need, the Nicaraguan people can win this battle
for freedom ^n their own," Reagan told the Conference of Presidents of Major
Jewish Organitatians at the White House.
"American troops have not been asked for and are not needed. We must make
sure they .never are needed. We send money and material now so we will never have
to send our own American boys," he said.
"But if the members of Congress hide their heads in the sand and pretend the
Nicaraguan threat will. go away, they are courting disaster and history will hold.
them accountable," he said. "Nothing less than the security of the United States
is at stake."
I~~.D macratic-c trolled anels the House Intelli ence Committee and the
House Forei n Affairs subcommittee on the Western Hemis here were scheduled to
vote late today on the plan,
In another development, congressional investigators have concluded that the
administration cannot account for how most of the non-lethal aid to the Contras
was s-pent despite a legal requirement that it ensure proper use of the money.
The General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, says that despite
initial plans for detailed bookkeeping, the administration had.almost no control
over X7.1 million or about 58 percent of the X12.2 million in non-lethal aid
spent-for the Contras through Feb. 24. -
"The (State) Department does not have procedures and controls which would
allow it 'to provide these assurances that the aid is going only for
non-lethal items, the GAO said in a statement prepared for presentation to
Congress today. A draft copy was obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.
The GAO said the accounting problem occurred "in large measure because those
charged with administering the program are unable to verify expenditures made in
the (Central American) region, and are unable to ohserve the end use of procured
items to ensure-that they were not diverted, bartered or exchanged.?
But the GAO said it found no evidence the U.S. money was used to buy weapons
or ammunition.
White House spokesman Larry Speakes said the report "does not seem to be
criticism of any wrongdoing, but criticism of procedures. As you will recall,
when this legislation was passed,`we were marching up and down Pennsylvania
Avenue saying, 'We don't like the procedures either.'
Continued
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t_was Congress not the White House, not the Reagan administration -that
required these procedures, that it be administered along the present lines, the
State Department humanitarian assistance office, and not through an intelligence
office," Speakes said.
Speakes said that if Congress approves the administration's proposal for both.
military and humanitarian assistance, "then we can institute necessary changes
in our procedures to assure that they are effective and coordinated."
Speakes also said the report had been .leaked by the staff of tine House-~
Foreign Affairs Coammittee, adding, "They got up a report and they leaked it to
try to influence the debate."
Responding to the GAO's findings, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger told
the House Armed Services Committee -today that accounting problems are
understandable for a guerrilla war.
"It's a little difficult for GAO auditors to warder into Nicaragua and be
able to give us a line-by-line, nice high school accounting of where every shoe
.went and where each package of food went," Weinberger said.
He urged approval of President Reagan's request for.~10D million in military
and logistical aid for the Contras, arguing that the leftist Nicaraguan
government was becoming a "second Cuba on ,the American mainland (meaning) the
Warsaw Pact will have effectively outflanked us."
Rep. William L. Dickinson of Alabama, the panel's ranking Republican, asked-
why no U.~. allies. it Latin America supported aid to the Contras.
"Is this just another incidence of us being Big Brother or a genuinely
popular thing?"Dickinson asked.
Weinberger responded that Nicaragua's neighbors had been."quelled and cowed"
by the 5andinista's growing military strength, but noted that Honduras has
helped by providing the Contras bases and supply routes.
A House Democratic task force on Central America issued a report toda y
contending ?U.S. policy toward Central America must be centered on diplomacy .. ..
rather than on the use of farce or the quest for military .victory."
An administration official, who insisted on anonymity, confirmed that the
State Department has had trouble accounting for expenditures made by the Contras
in Central America, but insisted the department has been "able to abide by the
letter of tMe law" providing X27 million in non-lethal aid.
That law required the president to "establish appropriate procedures to
ensure that any humanitarian assistance ... to the Nicaraguan democratic
resistance i5 used only for the intended purpose and is not diverted through
barter, ,exchange or any other means _ for acquisition of weapons."
After three years of covert CIA support for the rebels, Congress barred
lethal aid in 1984 but last summer permitted "humanitarian" assistance, such as
uniforms, boots, medicines and food.
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Honduras, however, objected to use of its territory far funneling supplies to
the Contras along the Nicaraguan border and forced the State Department to scrap
plans far detailed monitoring of the aid in .Central America.
The-GAO said the Honduras decision to block U,S. shipments also-meant most of
the aid had to be purchased in Central America outside of the aid office's
supervision.
Although it received invoices and receipts on the X7.1 million spent for the
.Contras in Central America, the aid office in suburban Virginia "cannot assess
the validity of the regional receipts, is unable to check out many suppliers,
has difficulty establishing reasonableness of prices and cannot verify actual
delivery or receipt of items," GAO said.
Payments for those supplies are "usually made to~a Miami bank account of one
of. several brokers authorized by-the regional suppliers to act as their agents,"
GAO said. "There is no audit t-rail showing payments from the brokers' accounts
to suppliers, and only partial documentation of shipments from-the suppliers to
the resistance forces."
In contrast to the spending in Central America, the GAO said the $S.2 million
in Contra aid spent in the United States was subjected to tight supervision. The.
rebels' umbrella group, the United Nicaraguan Opposition.,- submits invoices which
the aid office examines. The office checks to make sure, the supplier is
legitimate and the price is fair. Only .t hen are the supplies purchased and
payment sent.
However, because of the Honduran objections, many of those items, including
boats, uniforms and medicine, have remained in warehouses in New Orleans.
In other developments Tuesday:
Secretary of State George P. Shultz portrayed the struggle between the
Contras and the Nicaraguan government in stark terms, arguing- that the United
States has amoral duty to supply aid to rebels which he termed "the good
guys" ~ in their fight against the Sandinistas _ ~"-the bad guys."
Hundreds of religious protesters, including nearly two dozen bishops of
major denominations, formed a human cross on the Capitol steps, memorializing
Nicaraguan war dead and accusing- the Reagan administration of lies in support of
.terrorism and killing.
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