$Unique_ID{bob01043} $Pretitle{} $Title{Iran-Contra Affair: The Report Chapter 11A Clearing Hurdles: The President Approves A New Plan} $Subtitle{} $Author{Various} $Affiliation{} $Subject{north poindexter december arms tows hostages iran plan armitage israeli} $Date{1987} $Log{} Title: Iran-Contra Affair: The Report Author: Various Date: 1987 Chapter 11A Clearing Hurdles: The President Approves A New Plan The difficulties with the November 1985 HAWK shipment and the failure to secure the release of more hostages did not end the arms-to-Iran initiative. Having already traveled down the path of bargaining for the hostages' lives, the President and his NSC staff were reluctant to turn back. North quickly began to plan another arms deal, and the President signed the Finding that Stanley Sporkin prepared immediately after the HAWK shipment. North claimed repeatedly in December that reversing course would cause the radical captors to kill the hostages. North had another motivation for continuing the arms deals. As he explained to Israeli officials in early December, he wanted to divert profits to benefit the Contras he was supporting in Nicaragua. In December 1985 and January 1986, the Secretaries of State and Defense argued aggressively to the President against trying to trade arms for hostages. Among other things, they asserted that this initiative was illegal and contrary to longstanding U.S. public policy against providing arms to terrorist states and bargaining with terrorists. Secretary Weinberger and Secretary Shultz' arguments, together with a first-hand assessment by McFarlane that the Iranian intermediary was the "most despicable man" he had ever encountered, caused the initiative to lose momentum in December. However, in early January the Israelis approached Poindexter - who had replaced McFarlane as National Security Adviser - with a new plan that Poindexter and North quickly embraced. The President decided to go forward. He signed an expanded Finding and directed that the covert activity not be reported to Congress. Unlike the 1985 transactions, the President decided that the weapons for Iran would now come directly from U.S. stocks. The NSC staff took charge of the initiative, relegating the Israelis to a secondary role. Secord was designated as the agent of the U.S. Government in the future transactions. This created the opportunity to generate profits on the arms sales that the Enterprise could use for its other covert projects - including support of the Contras. The Players Change John Poindexter - soon to be elevated to National Security Adviser - and Oliver North met on November 27, 1985, to devise a new plan. Poindexter directed North to have Richard Secord or Israeli official David Kimche deliver a message to soothe the Iranians' feeling of having been cheated because the HAWKs delivered three days earlier did not meet their expectation. North and Poindexter also discussed a "change of team" on the operation. North's notes of the meeting indicate that the United States was prepared to deliver 120 items (probably a new version of HAWKs) in exchange for all the hostages after the first delivery and a commitment by Iran of no future terrorism. The change in team included removing Michael Ledeen, the NSC terrorism consultant, as an intermediary. When Ledeen gave Poindexter the message that the Iranians felt cheated, Poindexter told him, "We're going to take you off this thing for awhile because we need somebody with more technical expertise." This was the last time Ledeen spoke to Poindexter on the Iran initiative, "since from the time [Poindexter] became National Security Adviser, [Ledeen] was unable to get an appointment with him." In late November, Secord, Iranian go-between Ghorbanifar, Kimche, and Israeli arms dealers Al Schwimmer and Yaacov Nimrodi met in Paris. According to notes North took when Secord briefed him on the meeting, Ghorbanifar was "angry," apparently because the Iranians wanted "something to deal w[ith] Soviet Recon[naisance]" - such as Phoenix or Harpoon missiles - rather than the HAWKs that were delivered. Ghorbanifar advanced a set of proposals that "blatantly" called for the swapping of arms for hostages. The first proposal, as later related to North by Secord, provided for a phased exchange of 3200 TOW missiles for hostages: 600 TOWs = 1 release H + 6 hrs later = 2000 TOWs = 3 release H + 23 hrs = 600 TOWs = 1 release The other options were variations in which other armaments - such as Maverick air-to-surface missiles, Dragon surface-to-surface missiles, Improved-HAWK missiles, spares for F-4 air planes, ground artillery, and bombs - would be substituted for some or all of the TOWs. Ghorbanifar's proposal also contemplated arms deliveries beyond the initial swap. The Paris group agreed to meet with U.S. representatives in London on December 6 to pursue these proposals. North Looks for Weapons During the first few days of December, North had separate meetings with Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard L. Armitage and Israeli Ministry of Defense officials. The purpose of these sessions was to establish liaison between the Pentagon and the Israelis and to identify methods of obtaining weapons to ship to the Iranians or to replenish Israeli stocks following Israeli shipments. One of the Israeli officials met Armitage at the Pentagon on December 2. Armitage testified that he could not recall whether he met with the official or what they discussed. Armitage testified that he warned North of resistance to the plan within the Defense Department, noting that Secretary Weinberger would be "appalled" if he knew North was dealing with Iranians. Nonetheless, after this meeting, Armitage asked Dr. Henry Gaffney, Director of Plans, Defense Security Assistance Agency (DSAA), to prepare a paper on I-HAWKs and I-TOWs and directed Glenn A. Rudd, Deputy Director of DSAA, to prepare a paper on the legal methods for transferring TOW and HAWK missiles to Iran. Rudd's two-page paper, entitled "Possibility for Leaks," discussed legal methods of selling HAWKs and TOWs to Iran and outlined the inherent risks of Congressional disclosure or discovery by the security assistance community. Rudd concluded there was no way to transfer the weapons, whether directly to Iran or through Israel to Iran, under the Arms Export Control Act without notifying Congress; nor, he said, was there any way to prevent the security assistance community of bureaucrats, diplomats, and arms manufacturers and dealers from learning of the transfers. When he received Rudd's paper, Armitage instructed Rudd to treat the matter as very confidential and destroy all drafts. Armitage kept the sole copy in his personal office safe. When Armitage briefed Weinberger prior to a December 7, 1985, meeting at the White House, they reviewed "all the arguments that I [Armitage] had laid out, plus the legal arguments which I had mentioned in passing, and that he had absorbed. [Weinberger did not recall such a meeting, but did not dispute that it had occurred. Weinberger Test., Hearings, 100-10, at 97. In any event, at the White House meeting on December 7, he was well-prepared to attack the plan on a variety of legal and policy grounds.] North Lays Out A Plan On December 4, North wrote a PROF message to Poindexter setting out the current situation and proposing a new arms-for-hostages transaction. He described the "extraordinary distrust" the Iranians developed because Schwimmer and Ledeen had promised that the missiles shipped in November could fly high enough to stop Soviet reconnaissance flights. He said, "None of us [Kimche, Meron, Secord] have any illusions about the cast of characters we are dealing with on the other side. They are a primitive, unsophisticated group who are extraordinarily distrustful of the West in general and the Israelis/ U.S. in particular." While acknowledging "a high degree of risk" in continuing the operation, North emphasized, "we are now so far down the road that stopping what has been started could have even more serious repercussions." He exhorted Poindexter to press on in a way that suggested the United States was already subject to Iranian extortion: If we do not at least make one more try at this point, we stand a good chance of condemning some or all [of the hostages] to death and a renewed wave of Islamic Jihad terrorism. While the risks of proceeding are significant, the risks of not trying one last time are even greater. North outlined the proposal slated for the upcoming meeting in London. He said the "package" would comprise deliveries from Israel of "50 I HAWKs w/PIP (product improvement package) and 3300 basic TOWs" and reported that the Iranians had already deposited $41 million to pay for these items and that this sum was "now under our control." The schedule that North laid out made plain that this would be an unadulterated swap of arms for hostages: H-hr: 1 707 w/300 TOWs = 1 Amcit H + 10hrs: 1 707 (same A/C) w/300 TOWs = 1 Amcit H + 16hrs: 1 747 w/50 HAWKs & 400 TOWS = 2 Amcits H + 20hrs: 1 707 w/300 TOWs = 1 Amcit H + 24hrs: 1 747 w/2000 TOWs = French Hostage As it had been previously, the schedule was set up so that the Americans had to deliver weapons before the Iranians would produce any hostages. North also reported to Poindexter that "replenishing Israeli stocks is probably the most delicate issue." He proposed that the Israelis purchase replacements with cash, rather than with Foreign Military Sales credits. However, he ignored the legal question about third-country transfers under the Arms Export Control Act. Lastly, North told Poindexter that besides themselves, only National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane and Duane Clarridge of the CIA had a complete understanding of the full plan. Clarridge has denied that he and North discussed this plan, and said that the appearance of his name in North's PROF message is probably due to North's "tendency to use my name with McFarlane and Poindexter because if I said it was a good idea, then they tended to think it was a good idea." The following day, North put the proposal into an unsigned, unaddressed memorandum. This memorandum made clear that all 3,300 TOWs and all 50 Improved HAWK missiles would come from Israel's "prepositioned war reserve." North's memorandum proposed not only that Congress not be notified about the operation and replenishment, but also that there be a cover story to explain why Israel needed to buy weapons: The Israelis have identified a means of transferring the Iranian provided funds to an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) account, which will be used for purchasing items not necessarily covered by FMS. They will have to purchase the replenishment items from the U.S. in FMS transaction from U.S. stocks. Both the number of weapons and the size of the cash transfer could draw attention. If a single transaction is more than $14.9 M, we would normally have to notify Congress. The Israelis are prepared to justify the large quantity and urgency based on damage caused to the equipment in storage. Although the Finding CIA Counsel Stanley Sporkin drafted in November contemplated delayed Congressional notification, North's proposal represented an entirely different approach: structuring the transaction so as to evade Congressional reporting altogether. As North was putting together his plan for a new arms-for-hostages deal, the CIA stood by to provide support for more flights into Iran. In the days after the HAWK shipment, Clarridge and CIA stations in Countries 16 and 18 exchanged numerous cables relating to clearances for anticipated flights from Israel to Iran transiting at Country 18 and overflying Country 16. On November 27, Clarridge told the stations that the "operation is still on but we have encountered delays" and that "whatever was supposed to happen after the first sortie did not happen and we are regrouping." On December 3, he reported to them: "We are still regrouping. Key meetings of principals will take place this weekend with earliest possible aircraft deployments sometime mid to late week of December 8." Clarridge left the United States on other business in early December. However, before leaving he told his deputy to expect another flight to Iran on a project being run by the NSC for which the CIA would be asked to obtain clearances.