Word: coverte
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...much, at least according to Poindexter's testimony. Yet now that most of the evidence is in, the more basic questions about responsibility have become even more troubling. The Iranian arms deals and covert contra supply operations, dubious enough on their own, were part of a larger, even more insidious pattern: the establishment of a runaway foreign policy that relied on lies and deceptions to function outside the rule of law. Could the buck for such an apparatus really have stopped with John Poindexter...
Balancing a democracy's demands for public accountability with its need to conduct covert activities in a dangerous world has always been maddeningly difficult. But if the Iran-contra affair proves anything, it may be that policies able to stand up under democratic scrutiny tend to be better, even wiser, than those designed to avoid it. Operating the shadowy network that handled arms deals with Iran and funneled funds to the contras required a prolonged series of lies to Congress and the American people, the deception of U.S. allies, and keeping top Cabinet officials and perhaps even the President...
Even so, leaking is indeed a classic tool in the hardscrabble world of Washington politics. Congressmen, who are generally given only the outlines of a covert operation, occasionally hint their opposition to a secret activity without actually exposing it. Intelligence officials, on the other hand, leak for a wider variety of motives: to support or reshape an operation (such as assistance to the Afghan guerrillas), sometimes to score points or advance their political position...
Veteran Washington correspondents report that officials in all recent Administrations have leaked classified information far more frequently than have the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, which under law must be informed of covert operations. Even Poindexter called it "pure nonsense" to suggest that all such leaks come from Congress; he cited the White House staff, the National Security Council staff and the Departments of State and Defense as other frequent leakers...
Casey knew about the diversion in advance, said North, and strongly endorsed it, calling it "the ultimate irony, the ultimate covert operation." Last December, Casey told TIME, "I don't know anything about diversion of funds...