What did you know?
Barnard, Patrick
Secretary Baker's observation, offered in response to a question from Representative David Obey (D-Wis.), caused a storm in Congress. Israeli government officials and American...
...3. The veto by Robert Gates in June 1990 of tighter controls on missile technology exports from the U.S...
...Washington also shared command-andcontrol intelligence with Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war, encouraged the granting of U.S...
...He has contributed to the Nation and Newsday...
...Question: Why did Robert Gates reject the rational demand for control of dangerous technology exports...
...MTCR is a strict monitoring system aimed at countries with the potential of developing nuclear missiles...
...They stem from five specific aspects of the connections between the U.S...
...There are, however, other equally important questions that should be put to Gates, all of them linked to his involvement in the Bush administration's policy toward Saddam Hussein's Iraq before and after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait...
...Though significant numbers of Israelis object to the settlement activities, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the settlement movement and the Likud government are increasingly fixed on a policy that will lead eventually to annexation of the West Bank, and the expulsion of most of its Palestinian inhabitants through police action or economic strangulation...
...In January 1982, the then director of the CIA, William Casey, appointed Robert Gates Deputy Director for Intelligence, the top analyst's post and a prize plum for the Casey prot6g6...
...Within Baghdad's global and secret arms network, the highly specialized U.S...
...Since Washington's Iraq policy was deeply flawed, these queries raise the very real issue of whether it is wise to make Gates the head of the CIA...
...On June 8, 1990, Kloske sent a proposal directly to Robert Gates, outlining the expanded application of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) to exports destined for Iraq...
...and Baghdad: 1. William Casey's secret trip to Baghdad in 1982...
...p resident George Bush's nomination of Robert M. Gates to replace the outgoing William Webster as director of the CIA has prompted justified concern in Congress...
...Baker is right to object as strenuously and pointedly as he has...
...to Iraq...
...Robert Gates flatly turned down the Commerce Department proposal, even after Saddam Hussein, in a televised speech on April 2, 1990, threatened "to make the fire eat up half of Israel...
...Open your eyes Give me some of your care, some affair, Pick yourself out of the silence...
...During both December 1990 and January 1991, on the very eve of the Gulf conflict, the Bush administration decided not to prevent shipments to Jordan...
...his poetry is not in any way exceptional...
...agricultural loans to Baghdad through the government's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), and licensed the export of sensitive dual-use technology to Iraq...
...Don't feel bad--We all have to learn from our mistakes...
...Second, questions about Gates's decisions concerning Iraq provide a unique opportunity to clarify the historical record, and the means, perhaps, for the U.S...
...Sharon's blatant provocations but they do not disagree with the policy...
...QUESTIONS FOR MR...
...Question: Did Robert Gates know about Casey's visit or help to prepare it...
...At the time of Secretary of State James Baker's visits round the Middle East in March and April, and in particular, on the occasions of his stays in Israel, significant changes continued to take place in the occupied territories...
...Israeli government officials and American Jewish organizations quickly joined in...
...Question: Did Robert Gates know about the Allen warnings in July 1990, and did he play any role in down-playing their significance...
...and Europe to Iraq's military-industrial complex...
...to chart a more secure course in the Middle East...
...high-technology exports which were 14 June 1991:389 obviously being used as part of Iraq's domestic missile program...
...Gates knew all about Allen, and his proven reputation for stumbling on remarkably accurate information...
...Some eight weeks later, Casey made a secret trip to Baghdad and arranged the quidpro quo which allowed Iraq to be removed from the State Department's list of states supporting terrorism, a prerequisite for the subsequent resumption of diplomatic relations in November 1984...
...First, Gates was both a professional at the CIA and a member of the Casey team...
...Representative Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Tex...
...companies were being trans-shipped to Iraq via Jordan...
...Robert Gates received intelligence advice in December 1990 that consignments of military goods from U.S...
...The Gulf War is over but the situation in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza has deteriorated and the catastrophe of the Palestinian people continues...
...PATRICK BARNARD Patrick Bamard is a Canadian journalist specializing in international affairs...
...5. Advance warnings about Iran-contra and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait...
...First, there has been an acceleration in the illegal confiscation of Palestinian land to 390: Commonweal...
...But who better than Mr...
...He is a professional trouble-shooter whose job is to raise alarms within the national security community about political emergencies around the world...
...Ariel Sharon, minister of housing, has been quite clear about that...
...An official named Charles Eugene Allen works as the national intelligence officer for warning at the CIA...
...During the Bush administration, Robert Gates moved from CIA to become deputy national security adviser under Brent Scowcroft...
...Quite apart from the current efforts to negotiate a breakthrough, the settlements are counter to long-standing American policy, a fact barely discernible in congressional reaction to Mr...
...The liens on so many members blind them not only to U.S...
...Other ministers in the Likud government, including Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, may stand back from Mr...
...The public must ask themselves if they wish the CIA to continue the Casey Ixadition, in any form whatsoever...
...If not, can Gates explain why the CIA did not know more about the three thousand telexes sent from the obscure Georgia bank to major institutions in Iraq...
...Question: Since Robert Gates knew about this movement of goods, why did he not act to enforce the UN embargo...
...chairman of the House Banking Committee, claims that Italian officials of BNL have confirmed to him that "the CIA was involved in the concession of loans by BNL to Iraq...
...Baker is able to calibrate the importance of each of the many obstacles to peace he has encountered over the last two months in the Middle East...
...Four years later, in July 1990, Charles Allen reportedly issued three warnings that Iraq would invade Kuwait, and his first alarm was issued at the beginning of the month...
...Was he obeying orders from above, and from whom did they come...
...But the writer, Taha Qarageh, a Muslim Palestlnian student at Bethlehem University, should be heard for there is reason why he is desperate and deeply distressed as he suffers yet another four-day, twenty-fourhour curfew at Deheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem...
...WHOSE WATER...
...it is a policy we support...
...From 1985-1989, Baghdad, for its part, employed the Atlanta, Georgia, branch of the state-owned Italian bank, the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), to channel more than $4 billion of weaponry from the U.S...
...The settlements are an effort to create a de facto and permanent Israeli presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem...
...The intransigence of the Likud govemment is compounded by members of the Congress mortgaged to American supporters of Israel...
...The situation was strikingly similar to the one during Iran-contra...
...390-91...
...On October 1, 1986, Allen, while working as an intelligence chief on a classified CIA project, personally informed Robert Gates (then deputy director) that money from arms sales to Iran had been diverted to finance the contras in Nicaragua...
...2. The funding of Iraq's arms procurement network via a branch of Italy's Banca Nazionale del Lavoro in Atlanta, Georgia...
...The wall still stands And the heart is full of sadness...
...AND WHEN DID YOU KNOW IT...
...military goods to Iraq via Jordan, shipments which were in contravention of the UN embargo...
...Was he compelled to preserve an ongoing connection with Baghdad that began in 1982 with the secret Casey visit...
...These contracts brokered by BNL-Atlanta supplied electronic components for Iraqi missiles, barrels for special artillery, material to help make nerve and mustard gas, and computers for guidance systems...
...Baker's words...
...4. The refusal by the National Security Council in December 1990 and January 1991 to crack down on trans-shipments of U.S...
...interests in the Middle East, but ultimately to Israel's as well...
...Question: Since Robert Gates was approved as deputy director of the CIA in April of 1986, during the period of activity by the Georgia branch of BNL, can Gates either deny or confirm that BNL-Atlanta was part of a CIA-aided operation...
...GATES WHAT DID YOU 14 OW...
...Yet Allen's warnings about the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait were apparently shunted aside in July 1990...
...support for Israel has been reliable and consistent in word and deed...
...What is the new world order for Taha Qarageh...
...The confirmation hearings for the Gates appointment are important for two reasons...
...Yet, when Gates helped Wdliam Casey prepare testimony for delivery before the House and Senate Intelligence committees, on November, 21, 1986, Gates apparently did nothing to alter Casey's misleading assertions about Iran-contra...
...But it is a wholly other and contradictory policy for the United States to acquiesce in the continuing settlement of the occupied territories...
...Beginning in 1983 and 1984, the Reagan adminisaafion facilitated the trans-shipment of U.S...
...dealings, managed by BNL-Atlanta, took $1.9 billion of American taxpayers' funds from the CCC to aid procurement...
...Allen specifically told Gates about the actions of Oliver North...
...IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES lgA l o NOT l gAClg WHOSE LAND...
...At his coming confirmation hearings, some legislators plan to press Gates about his conduct during the Iran-contra scandal...
...Though serious obstacles come from the Arab side as well, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the increase of land seizures in the occupied territories and the growth of the Israeli settlements are meant to derail the secretary's negotiation efforts (see Patrick White's article, pp...
...Throughout the beginning of 1990, Commerce Department officials--led by the Under Secretary for Export Administration, Dennis E. Kloske--argued in April, May, and June for much tighter controls on U.S...
...An Israel that does this--slowly or swiftly, in stages or all at once--is an Israel that the United States should not support...
...military goods to Iraq via Egypt, Kuwait, and Jordan...
...When the settlements now serve as a critical barrier to peace negotiations, Mr...
Vol. 118 • June 1991 • No. 12
