Army chief of staff Wickham demanded that a memo on congressional notification be sent to Powell. “The chief wanted it in writing,” stated Army Lt. Gen. Arthur E. Brown, who delivered the memo to Powell on March 7, 1986.
Five days later, Powell handed the memo to President Reagan’s national security adviser John Poindexter with the advice: “Handle it ... however you plan to do it,” Powell later testified.
Poindexter’s plan for “timely notification” was to tell Congress on the last day of the Reagan presidency, January 20, 1989. Poindexter stuck the Pentagon memo into a White House safe, along with the secret “finding” on the Iran missile shipments.
Prohibited Shipments
Col. John William McDonald, who oversaw covert supply, added his voice to the Pentagon objections when he learned that key Army officials had no idea where the weapons were headed.
“One [concern] was inadvertent provision of supplies to the [Nicaraguan] contras in violation of the Boland Amendment,” which prohibited military shipments to the contras, McDonald testified.
“The second issue was inadvertent supply to countries that were on the terrorist list. ... There is a responsibility to judge the legality of the request.”
When McDonald was asked by congressional investigators how he would have reacted if told the weapons were going to Iran, he responded, “I would have told General Thurman ... that I would believe that the action was illegal and that Iran was clearly identified as one of the nations on the terrorist list for whom we could not transfer weapons.”
But when McDonald joined other Pentagon officers in appealing to Powell about the missile shipment’s destination, they again were told not to worry.
Powell “reiterated [that it was] the responsibility of the recipient” agency, the CIA, to notify Congress, “and that the Army did not have the responsibility to do that.”
Then, in March 1986, Powell conveyed a second order, this time for 284 HAWK antiaircraft missile parts and 500 HAWK missiles. This time, Powell’s order set off alarms not only over legal questions, but whether the safety of U.S forces might be jeopardized.
The HAWK order would force a drawdown of U.S. supplies to a dangerous level. Henry Gaffney, a senior supply official, warned Powell that “you’re going to have to start tearing it out of the Army’s hide.”
But the Pentagon again followed Powell’s orders. It stripped its shelves of 15 spare parts for HAWK missiles that were protecting U.S. forces in Europe and elsewhere in the world.
“I can only trust that somebody who is a patriot ... and interested in the survival of this nation ... made the decision that the national policy objectives were worth the risk of a temporary drawdown of readiness,” said Lt. Gen. Peter G. Barbules.
If there had been an air attack on U.S. forces in Europe during the drawdown, the HAWK missile defense batteries might not have had the necessary spare parts to counter an enemy attack.
As implemented by Powell, the Iran initiative had taken priority over both legal safeguards and the safety of U.S. soldiers around the world.
Ironically, after helping set in motion the Iranian arms shipments that left U.S. forces in Europe potentially vulnerable, Powell was dispatched to West Germany, where he was made commander of the V Corps in pursuit of another general’s star.
For more on Colin Powell’s real history, see Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, available directly from the publisher at http://www.neckdeepbook.com or from Amazon.com.
Originally published on consortiumnews.com
