In 1984, Teicher said he went to Iraq with Reagan's special envoy Donald Rumsfeld to convey a secret Israeli offer to assist Iraq after Israel had concluded that Iran was becoming a greater danger, according to the affidavit.
“I traveled with Rumsfeld to Baghdad and was present at the meeting in which Rumsfeld told Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz about Israel’s offer of assistance,” Teicher wrote. “Aziz refused even to accept the Israelis’ letter to Hussein offering assistance because Aziz told us that he would be executed on the spot by Hussein if he did so.”
Bush Role
“In 1986, President Reagan sent a secret message to Saddam Hussein telling him that Iraq should step up its air war and bombing of Iran,” Teicher wrote. “This message was delivered by Vice President Bush who communicated it to Egyptian President Mubarak, who in turn passed the message to Saddam Hussein.
“Similar strategic operational military advice was passed to Saddam Hussein through various meetings with European and Middle Eastern heads of state. I authored Bush’s talking points for the 1986 meeting with Mubarak and personally attended numerous meetings with European and Middle East heads of state where the strategic operational advice was communicated.”
Though Teicher’s affidavit represented a major breakthrough in an important historical mystery, the Clinton administration instead rallied to the defense of Reagan and Bush-41. Clinton’s Justice Department attacked the credibility of Teicher's affidavit and ordered it sealed as a national security secret.
Federal prosecutors even threatened Teicher with legal retaliation, pressed for sanctions against Teledyne's attorneys for trying to raise a justification defense, and convinced the Teledyne case judge to block Teicher's testimony on the grounds that it was irrelevant.
Barred from citing the Teicher evidence, Teledyne negotiated a plea deal. As for Ed Johnson, his jury never got to hear about Teicher or his affidavit, so it found the salesman guilty of violating the Arms Export Control Act. Johnson was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison.
The “official” history about Iraqgate solidified into a certainty that the story of secret U.S. military assistance to Iraq was bogus. That finding is enshrined in the shallow assessment of Wikipedia, whose entry states: “Although the charges received extensive attention in the early 1990s and are periodically repeated today, they were eventually discredited.”
That judgment still holds even though other senior government officials have acknowledged that the Iraqgate allegations were, in fact, true. For instance, former CIA officer Melissa Boyle Mahle, a Middle East expert, stated flatly in her 2004 book, Denial and Deception, that in the mid-1980s, “the United States was already deeply involved in providing weapons and other military support to Iraq.”
In other words, the Clinton administration didn’t just look the other way when it came to Reagan-Bush-41 crimes. Its officials joined in obstructions of justice, even to the extent of sending an American citizen off to prison rather than divulge secrets that would have damaged the legacies of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Similarly, the Clinton administration played down extraordinary admissions by the CIA’s inspector general in 1998 that the Reagan administration had concealed evidence of widespread cocaine trafficking by the Nicaraguan contras. Despite the CIA’s confession, that scandal, too, has gone down in American history as having been “discredited.” [For details, see Robert Parry’s Lost History.]
Repeating History
Beyond distorting the public record upon which Americans make their judgments in a democratic society, the Clinton administration got none of the wished-for reciprocity. The Republicans waged one of the most partisan assaults on a sitting American President ever, ultimately impeaching (though not convicting) Clinton of lying about a sexual dalliance.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
2
2
