Word: pentagonal
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...Saudis paid for them. The money went to Adnan Khashoggi, a billionaire Saudi businessman who was acting as a surrogate for the royal family. Khashoggi, in turn, would pay commissions to the Iranian middlemen and give the CIA the book value of the arms for repayment to the Pentagon. Various bank accounts and straw companies were used to conceal the routing of the funds. The same devious channels, according to Ghadry, were used to pour Saudi money into accounts to fund the contras...
...AWACS radar planes (ironically, for protection against any military threat from Iran), four U.S. officials worked hard to turn the tide. They were North, then a little-known aide at the NSC; Charles P. Tyson, another NSC staffer; Richard Secord, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense; and Robert Lilac, a Pentagon official who moved to the NSC, where he became North's boss. The four worked closely with Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan to close the deal, which was bitterly opposed by Israel...
When Weinberger picked Carlucci to be his deputy in 1981, many conservatives criticized the choice of a nonideological bureaucrat who had served with Jimmy Carter. At the Pentagon he was extremely sensitive to leaks, and after one such incident he had some 25 high-level officials, including himself, submit to lie-detector tests. "I believe in appropriate secrets," Carlucci says, "and I believe in keeping them." But unlike CIA Director William Casey, Carlucci is comfortable with the concept of congressional oversight of intelligence activities...
...Carlucci's controversial actions at the Pentagon involved Richard Secord, who was then a deputy assistant secretary for the Middle East and has since become a central figure in the network of private arms dealers supplying Iran and the contras. In early 1982 Secord was placed on leave while a federal grand jury investigated his alleged ties to Edwin Wilson, a renegade CIA operative turned arms merchant. But with Carlucci's approval, Secord was soon reinstated. Secord, who was never indicted, was many rungs down in the hierarchy from Carlucci, and one of Carlucci's subordinates last week took responsibility...
...Friday is designed to help equip government forces with helicopters, heavier weapons and armor, and communications gear that would give them the capacity to operate independently against Taliban guerrillas in harsh terrain. But that won't happen in time to face the Taliban's anticipated spring offensive. So, the Pentagon also announced Wednesday that 3,200 soldiers from the U.S. 10th Mountain Division will have their tour of duty in Afghanistan extended by four months. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he is likely to ask President Bush for several thousand more American troops augment the 24,000 already there...