Word: spares
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...could be said that the drama started in 1981, just after Reagan came into office, when U.S. officials learned that Israel was ignoring the 1979 American ban on the sale of arms to Iran. At the time Iran badly needed spare parts for the American-made weapons it had acquired during the Shah's reign. In their hour of need the Iranians looked to Israel, which had also supplied weapons to the Shah...
Throughout 1981 and 1982 Israel provided Iran with modest amounts of spare parts, jet-plane tires and brakes, ammunition and radar equipment. The Israelis reportedly set up Swiss bank accounts to handle the financial end of the deals. Despite its embargo, the U.S. appeared to look the other way. Administration officials seemed interested in Israel's notion that the arms sales would help foster ties with leaders in the Iranian military who might topple the regime of the Ayatullah Khomeini. But by mid-1982 the U.S. was pressuring Israel to comply with the ban on weapons sales. Israel said...
...essence of his report was stark and startling. The U.S. had provided $12 million in weapons and spare parts to Israeli representatives. They then resold the arms to Iran for a much higher price, and the money was paid into Swiss bank accounts. The CIA received the original $12 million and repaid it to the Pentagon. But anywhere from $10 million to $30 million went into numbered accounts that Meese said were "under the control of representatives" of the contras. Presumably, the money was used to purchase weapons that the rebels need to wage their guerrilla war against the Marxist...
...snafu was symbolic as well as substantive: it showed an Administration floundering and failing in its attempts to restore its credibility. In their efforts to explain and justify the secret U.S. sales of weapons and spare parts to Iran -- which shattered the entire foundation of the Administration's fervent public efforts to take a strong stand against terrorism -- Reagan and his aides last week seemed only to be erecting a Tower of Babel abuzz with conflicting and contradictory voices. Presidential confidants past and present got into a public squabble: former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, one of the architects...
...President's demeanor was appropriately somber. Though he claimed that all the aides who knew about the secret diplomatic contacts with Iranian officials approved of them, he acknowledged in his opening statement that "several top advisers opposed the sale of even a modest shipment of defensive weapons and spare parts to Iran." He had weighed their advice and rejected it, said Reagan. "The responsibility for the decision and the operation is mine and mine alone . . . I was convinced then and I am convinced now that while the risks were great, so too was the potential reward...