
Message number 323 in "AEN_NEWS"
Date: 01-17-93  08:07
From: Linda Thompson
To:   Donald Roop
Subj: GOVT Drug Traffic - 1

MSGID: 1:231/110 2B527C53
EVIDENCE OF GOVERNMENT TRAFFICKING IN COCAINE
AND COVERUP BY THOSE PARDONED:

Excerpted from
Congressional Record
House Wednesday, May 20, 1992
102nd Cong. 2nd Sess.
138 Cong Rec H 3667, 3668
REFERENCE: Vol. 138 No. 71 -- Part 2
Title: OLD-FASHIONED VALUES.

       "The Iraqi loans. We circumvented the law by giving large loans
to Saddam Hussein even though we knew at one point that Saddam Hussein
was converting loans for agriculture programs which were designed to buy
food into cash to buy weapons. We sold Saddam Hussein some of those
weapons. Our government licensed the sales. Our government knew that
high level deals were taking place.  The people are the contributors to
this administration, the people who are the friends of this
administration, were all involved, so nothing was done. What kind of
example are we setting for the American youth or for American families?
They want to talk about old-fashioned values. Let us talk about
patriotism as an old-fashioned value. Let us talk about what happens
when we send American young people off to risk their lives in a war
against an enemy that we have armed, against an enemy that we have
encouraged. Old-fashioned values are very important.
      "Why do we not explain why the CIA was so close to Noriega, why
they used Noriega for their own purposes even though they knew Noriega
was part of a drug smuggling, drug running operation through Panama
which fed right into our big cities? The same squalor, the same
multitude of problems that are caused by crack, and  cocaine,  heroin,
all began when we allow the drug smugglers from South America and other
places to take hold and to build financial empires in our cities. They
are so powerful now. The mob is so powerful. They have so much money,
and they are better equipped than the law enforcement officials and able
to avoid prosecution. Their tentacles reach out in all kinds of
directions. They buy off high level people and policemen. They are
powerful because we allow themto become powerful, and part of the
process of their accumulating power was because our government winked,
our government allowed it. They knew it was happening. For their own
purposes they wanted to use Noriega, so they allowed him to go right
ahead. They allowed Noriega, they allowed a number of thugs in Haiti and
other places, to bring in their marijuana, their  cocaine, their heroin,
and we have a problem of demand generated because our government looked
the other way and allowed the suppliers freedom to manipulate.
      "The BCCI, the Bank of Credit and Commercial International,
existed for only abrief period as banks go. But probably there has never
been a more corrupt instiution on the face of the earth. The BCCI was
known to be a criminal enterprise as long ago as 10 years ago. It was
known to be a criminal enterpriseat the time that the head of the
Central Intelligence Agency, the highest intelligence agency of our  
 
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Message number 324 in "AEN_NEWS"
Date: 01-17-93  08:08
From: Linda Thompson
To:   Donald Roop
Subj: GOVT Drug Traffic - 2

MSGID: 1:231/110 2B527C7A
government, was having regular meetings with the headof the BCCI.
Nobody, nobody, questions the tru th of these statements. It is admitted
that William Casey met with the head of the BCCI on a regular basis.
      "What kind of message about values do we send when we admit that
the highest level intelligence operatives in the United States met
regularly with the highest level criminals in the world? BCCI was known
to be a criminal enterprise. Nothing was done. Our value system or the
value system that Washington endorses and that this administration
endorses and holds up to our young people and our families is a value
system that says,  'If you're powerful enough and if you're rich enough,
there is no morality, there are no laws which affect you. There are no
sins. You're above it all. The government can get in bed with you, and
the government is above it all.' "

Excerpted from
Congressional Record -- House
Wednesday, February 5, 1992
102nd Cong. 2nd Sess.
138 Cong Rec H 315
REFERENCE: Vol. 138 No. 13
TITLE: PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF HOUSE
RESOLUTION 258, CREATING A TASK FORCE TO
INVESTIGATE CERTAIN ALLEGATIONS CONCERNING THE
HOLDING OF AMERICANS AS HOSTAGES BY IRAN IN 1980

   "Now, notice that today, again and again, we have been running into
the same problem here in the House. We have the stories about  cocaine
dealing in the post office and who got told or who did not get told. We
have the stories about a lawyer who works for a democratic staff writing
a letter to a Federal judge to get an arms dealer out and who gets told
and does not get told."

PART 2 of 5
EVIDENCE OF GOVERNMENT TRAFFICKING IN COCAINE
AND COVERUP BY THOSE PARDONED:

Excerpted from
Congressional Record -- House
Monday, September 23, 1991
102nd Cong. 1st Sess.
137 Cong Rec H 6701
REFERENCE: Vol. 137 No. 132
TITLE: MY ADVICE TO THE PRIVILEGED ORDERS
SPEAKER: Mr. GONZALEZ

[Referring to Manuel Noriega and the Government's involvement
in cocaine trafficking):  
 
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Message number 325 in "AEN_NEWS"
Date: 01-17-93  08:09
From: Linda Thompson
To:   Donald Roop
Subj: GOVT Drug Traffic - 3

MSGID: 1:231/110 2B527CB3
      "[A]s is amply brought out in this last issue of the New
Yorker in the section known as "The Talk of the Town" for
September 23, which is today inserted in the record. Mr. Speaker,
I will insert this article at this point in the Record:

      "NOTES AND COMMENT

      "It has been more than a year and a half since United
States troops invaded Panama in an operation, code-named Just
Cause, that, according to some estimates, caused a thousand
Panamanian fatalities, destroyed a billion and a half dollars' worth
of property, and left twenty-three American servicemen dead.On
the morning of December 20, 1989, President Bush explained to
the American people that he had been compelled to transform
the United States military into afederal posse, with orders to bring
General Noriega to justice, for several reasons: to safeguard
American lives, to protect the Panama Canal, and to defend
democracy. The President also cast the invasion as a battle in the
war against drugs. General Manuel Noriega, he pointed out, was
"an indicted drug trafficker," and he implied that the General's
removal would help stem the flow of drugs into American cities.
Ironically, the invasion appears to have had the opposite effect.
This past July, the General Accounting Office reported that money
laundering has "flourished" in Panama, and that since Operation
Just Causedrug trafficking in Panama "may have doubled."
      "Last week, in Miami, jury selection of the long-awaited trial
of General Noriega began. Federal prosecutors argued in pretrial
briefs that "this is first but, whether or not Noriega is ultimately
found guilty, his trial is likely to provide a chilling post mortem on
United States foreign-policy goals and priorities during its long
crusade against the perceived threat of Communism. The more
evidence the prosecution presents of how General Noriega turned
his country into what one of his associates call
ed a "narco-kleptocracy" -- how he received millions in
commissions from the Medellincartel for laundering drug money,
permitted the Colombians to build  cocaine -processing plants in
Panama's jungles, and used members of his own staff to smuggle
drugs -- the more difficult it will be for United States officials to
explain why the General was at the very same time receiving
hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of United States taxpayers'
dollars from the American intelligence community. Already, the
government has been forced to admit that even as Noriega was
trafficking in narcotics he was "a paid asset" ofthe United States
military and "held a paid relationship with the C.I.A." UnitedStates
paychecks made out directly to Noriega may add up to only three
hundred and twenty thousand dollars, but Noriega's lawyers say
that the C.I.A. provided the General with "project funds" of eleven
million.  
 
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Message number 326 in "AEN_NEWS"
Date: 01-17-93  08:10
From: Linda Thompson
To:   Donald Roop
Subj: GOVT Drug Traffic - 4

MSGID: 1:231/110 2B527CDE
      "In return for this money, General Noriega rendered
services to a number of United States agencies. He allowed the
Pentagon to conduct secret military operations in Panamanian
territory; he spied on other nations, including Fidel Castro's Cuba,
for the C.I.A.; he aided the Reagan Administration's covert war
against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. He also assisted the United
States Drug Enforcement Agency, by turning in drug runners
whom he found uncooperative.
      "These activities are expected to provide the core of
General Noriega's defense -- the contention that his nefarious
activities were known to his American intelligence handlers and
were at times sanctioned by them, as part of his contribution to
the United States battle against radicalism in Latin America. The
question of who knew what, and when, has already proved
embarrassing for President Bush, who has claimed that he did not
know ofNoriega's illicit operations until the General was indicted,
by federal grand juries in Florida, in February, 1988. As director
of the C.I.A. in 1976, however, and as Ronald Reagan's
Vice-President from 1981 through 1988, Mr. Bush was in official
positions where briefings would almost certainly have included a
clear picture of the General's criminality and corruption. By the
early nineteen-eighties, according to Norman Bailey, a one time
member of President Reagan's National Security Council staff,
there existed "not a 'smoking gun' but rather a twenty-one cannon
barrage of evidence" regarding General Noriega's involvement in
drug-smuggling activities. Indeed, as early as 1972 the Nixon
Administration's Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs had
considered "total and complete immobilization" of Noriega -- a
euphemism for assissination -- as one method of halting his
narcotics operations. But the rest of Washington ignored Noriega's
growing narco-business then and went on ignoring it until June
13, 1986, when the Times printed a front-page story by Seymour
Hersh under the headline "Panama Strongman Said to Trade in
Drugs, Arms and Illicit Money." And even then high-ranking
Reagan Administration officials were willing not only to look the
other way but to help Noriega, as a quid pro quo for his
pandering to their No. 1 foreign-policy obsession -- the overthrow
of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
      "Among the troubling stories that emerged during the 1989
trial of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North was that in August, 1986,
two months after the Times article appeared, Noriega approached
North through an emissary and offered a deal. According to a
document submitted as evidence by the government, Noriega said
that in return for "a promise from the USG to help clean up
Noriega's image" and a commitment to lift the ban on arms sales
he would "assassinate the Sandinista leadership" and undertake
sabotage operations inside Nicaragua.
      "Vice-Admiral John Poindexter, then President Reagan's
national-security adviser,ruled out assassination but, according to
trial documents, suggested that "Panamanian assistance with  
 
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Message number 327 in "AEN_NEWS"
Date: 01-17-93  08:10
From: Linda Thompson
To:   Donald Roop
Subj: GOVT Drug Traffic - 5

MSGID: 1:231/110 2B527D0F
sabotage would be another story." North later reported that he
met with Noriega in London on September 22nd and worked out
a plan whereby Noriega would "try to take immediate actions"
against Nicaraguan installations, including an airport, a cargo
facility, and the nation's only oilrefinery. Those operations never
came to fruition, however, because of the  Iran-Contra  scandal,
which ended the government careers of North and Poindexter,
and left General Noriega without his protectors.
      "The image of the United States consorting with, paying
and even protecting dope peddlers of General Noriega's ilk is not
what Americans think is meant whenour government says it is
promoting freedom abroad and protecting our national security
at home. Yet such corruption of moral and political values is a
large part of the reality of the "dirty wars" that have been fought
no our behalf -- usually without our knowledge of consent -- in the
name of safeguarding democracy. Our policymakers seem to
believe that there is no connection between the end and the
means -- that our principles can remain uncorrupted even when
we defend them with methods that are debased."

EVIDENCE OF GOVERNMENT TRAFFICKING IN COCAINE
AND COVERUP BY THOSE PARDONED:

Excerpted from
Congressional Record -- Senate
Thursday, September 20, 1990
101st Cong. 2nd Sess.
136 Cong Rec S 13468
REFERENCE: Vol. 136 No. 117
TITLE: EL SALVADOR: LEAHY-DODD GIVES PEACE A CHANCE
SPEAKER: Mr. CRANSTON; Mr. FORD

   "Soon, though, the fine line between merely appeasing Bustillo
and actively supporting him began to fade, as U.S. officials
competed with each other to showthe benefits of cooperating with
Washington. The CIA's San Salvador station, which had been
parking its helicopters at Ilopango and keeping a warehouse for
its special operations there, provided money and training to elite
air force ground units, according to U.S. military sources. Edwin
Corr, who was U.S.ambassador in San Salvador for most of
Duarte's term, lent Bustillo an armor-plated luxury car from the
embassy motor pool and lobbied Congress to get more helicoters
for the air force. Bustillo was the only Salvadoran commander with
a private counterinsurgency adviser: Felix Rodriguez, a former CIA
operative in Vietnam and Latin America with close ties to
then-Vice President George Bush's office; he arrived in El Salvador
in early 1985.
      The high point of U.S. collaboration with Bustillo came
later that year, when Oliver North made Ilopango the hub of his
contra resupply network. Bustillo's help, arranged through  
 
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Message number 328 in "AEN_NEWS"
Date: 01-17-93  08:11
From: Linda Thompson
To:   Donald Roop
Subj: GOVT Drug Traffic - 6

MSGID: 1:231/110 2B527D37
Rodriguez, was invaluable: false end-user certificates to buy arms;
the expansion of an overflowing warehouse for contra weapons;
air force ID cards for nineteen resupply pilots. Some 109 secret
flights shuttled in and out of Ilopango, according to the
congressional Iran-contra committee report.
      Not only did this direct link to the White House strengthen
Bustillo, it also weakened Duarte, whom the United States was
ostensibly trying to bolster. When the Ilopango operation was
exposed in October 1986, Duarte, who had warned U.S. officials
that his government would suffer if contra aid from El Salvador
were ever exposed, wanted to fire the air force commander. That
would have been a breakthrough assertion of civilian authority.
But the defense minister, General Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova,
objected, pointedly raising the specter of an airforce revolt, a
former senior Duarte aide told me.
      "Still, support from the United States might have
encouraged Duarte to take onBustillo. No such support was given.
Ambassador Corr sat in on the meeting in which Duarte and Vides
debated firing Bustillo. Duarte aides have said Corr backed Vides.
Corr told me he neither urged Durate to assert his authority and
remove a right-wing menace to civilian rule nor defended the air
force general whom Corr was cultivating, and who was in a
position to expose Corr's governmentand Corr's embassy. "It was
cowboy time and Bustillo was our man," says a U.S. diplomat who
served in San Salvador during this period.  All the while, bad air
force habits were allowed to grow worse. Bustillo irked the army
by reserving choppers for the air force's own paratroop battalion,
or army troops commanded by his friends. Air force ground units,
especially CIA-assisted ground units, remained notorious for
human rights abuses. In late 1986, for example, the body of
twenty-three-year-old Nelson Rodriguez, who had been arrested by
air force troops as a rebel suspect, was found, thumbs tied behind
the back death-squad style. In April 1989 an air forceunit
ambushed a rebel field hospital, reporting nine guerrillas killed.
Later foreign human rights groups found evidence that the air
force men had captured, tortured, and killed five of the rebels it
claimed to have killed in combat. An autopsy by a French doctor
on a guerrilla nurse from France showed she had probably been
raped before being killed.
      "Air force officers spent much of their time pursuing illicit
gain. For years a Salvadoran air force DC-6 that carried pilots to
training at the U.S. Howard Air Force Base in Panama returned
full of contraband liquor and appliances, Salvadoran military
officers say. The goods were sold on the black market, shared as
patronage, or stocked in the ample air force PX. Other rackets
included a fencing operation for stolen cars. A former top-level
Salvadoran military officer told me that police arrested an air f
orce captain running a car theft "gang" at the airbase in 1986. The
captain escaped to the United States.  
 
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Message number 329 in "AEN_NEWS"
Date: 01-17-93  08:13
From: Linda Thompson
To:   Donald Roop
Subj: GOVT Drug Traffic - 7

MSGID: 1:231/110 2B527D90
      "There are also indications the air force ripped off the
United States itself. Last year the General Accounting Office found
that the Salvadoran air force had sold more than $100,000 worth
of Pentagon-supplied fuel to the contra resupply network, keeping
the money in apparent violation of U.S. rules. Separately, the air
force sold $700,000 worth of U.S.-supplied fuel back to the United
States torefuel visiting U.S. planes. Apparently that money went
into an Air Force slush fund. When the GAO inquired, Busti
llo said he spent it to remodel the Ilopango base; as for contra
aid, he said that "Salvadoran national security interests" prevented
him from answering any questions.
      "Even more disturbing, reports that the air force was
involved in  cocaine  trafficking began to reach U.S. ears. Sources
in the Drug Enforcement Administration told me it has confirmed
long-standing rumors that air force members are involved in
street-level sales of the drug within El Salvador.
      "The more important question is whether the air force
dabbled in international drug trafficking as well. Reports that it
might have done so date from at least 1986 -- around the time the
contra resupply operation was exposed. At that time,an agent from
the DEA's branch office in Guatemala City came to San Salvador,
seeking access to Ilopango. Bustillo stalled, says a U.S. official with
first-hand knowledge of the case. "There was never a good reason
why [the DEA] couldn't get on to Ilopango," he told me. "
They just kept putting of meetings, stuff like that. [The DEA]
wasn't going to beat its head against the wall."

      "On June 21, 1988, Salvadoran army troops came upon a
light plane that had runout of gas and landed near a remote
hacienda on the country's Pacific coast. Police found it had been
carrying almost half a ton of  cocaine,  worth more than $30
million. Some drugs had been off-loaded and stuffed into secret
compartments in a pickup truck that was discovered later. Police
followed the trail to a warehouse on the Boulevard of the Army,
in an industrial area that falls under air force security jurisdiction.
Inside, they found  cocaine  packed in large spools of cotton yarn
bound for the United States; apparently this was a large, ongoing
transshipment operation.
      "Five weeks after the discovery of the plane, an air force
lieutenant colonel, Edwin Napoleon Lazo, was shot to death. The
case remains unsolved. The air force never blamed the murder on
the rebels and the rebels never claimed it, though they have
singled out air force officers for attack. Two officials with close ties
to the military, a Salvadoran and an American, told me they
believe Lazo was killed by others in the air force because he was
about to blow the whistle on  cocaine  trafficking. Though there
 is no direct proof of that view, it is indirectly supported by the
fact that air force officers resorted to kidnap and torture to frame
two civilians for Lazo's murder.  
 
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Message number 330 in "AEN_NEWS"
Date: 01-17-93  08:13
From: Linda Thompson
To:   Donald Roop
Subj: GOVT Drug Traffic - 8

MSGID: 1:231/110 2B527DBC
      "Lazo and a friend named Juan Alexander Garcia Prieto
were killed in front of Garcia Prieto's home near Ilopango. Court
records in San Salvador show the firstauthorities on the scene were
air force troops. They immediately produced a witness who
claimed that a taxi driver named Luis Ernesto Cuellar had shot
Garcia Prieto because he owed Garcia Prieto money. Lazo,
purportedly, was an unlucky bystander. The witness was brought
to court by heavily armed members of the air force who refused
to give their names to the judge. But his storyclashed with those
of other witnesses. The judge said he fell into "a series of
contradictions." Paraffin tests on Cuellar to determine if he had
recently fireda gun were negative.
      "Shortly before Cuellar's defense attorney, Roberto
Orellana, was to cross-examine the air force witness, the lawyer was
kidnapped by heavily armed men, thrown face down into the back
of a red Toyota pickup, then handcuffed and blindfolded. For five
days, according to Orellana's sworn court testimony, he
was beaten, deprived of food and sleep, threatened with death,
and so tightly handcuffed that he lost all feeling in his hands. To
his astonishment, the kidnappers were trying to force him to
confess to helping his client kill Lazo.
      "Orellana was put in a secret cell -- at Ilopango. He recalled
hearing helicopters outside as the questions and beatings went on.
Finally the door of his secret prison opened and a new questioner
entered. The man, whom Orellana never saw, spoke as a superior
to the others and questioned the lawyer for several minutes,
without harming him. When Orellana's blindfolded was removed
later in a different room, a guard told him his mystery
interrogator had been Bustillo.
      "The court records include a letter to the National Police
from Major Roberto Antonio Leiva Jacobo of the air force
intelligence unit, S-2. (S-2 operated an "infamous" red Toyota
pickup, a U.S. military officer told me.) Citing order from Bustillo,
the major said he was sending Orellana to the police as a
suspectin Lazo's death. Though it is not clear how involved
Bustillo was in the affair,at a minimum wasn't fazed by the
brutalized condition of his men's capitve.
      "Eventually a judge dismissed the charges and both Cuellar
and Orellana were released. A friend of Cuellar's told me that he
fled to asylum in Australia; Orellana stayed in Salvador, Neither
the air force nor anyone else has investigated the Lazo murder
since the trumped-up case fell apart. Nor have the authorities
looked into the apparent frame-up. As for the drug plane, three
Salvadorans arrested as suspected smugglers, one of whom is
rumored to be related to a former top army officer, have all gone
free: two were ordered released by a judge who was later disbarred
for taking a bribe to release a gangof kidnappers with ties to
rightist death squads; the third walked using a forged release
order.  
 
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 * Origin: If you come to take my gun, remember I'm armed (1:231/110)

Message number 331 in "AEN_NEWS"
Date: 01-17-93  08:14
From: Linda Thompson
To:   Donald Roop
Subj: GOVT Drug Traffic - 9

MSGID: 1:231/110 2B527DE6
      "A few months after Lazo's death, Bustillo asked the U.S.
Embassy if the DEA would check out the drug rumors swirling
around his men, DEA agents in the region were wary of this
change of heart, according to U.S. officials. At the time Bustillo
was bidding to become minister of defense; the agents thought he
had to know what was going on at his base and just wanted to
curry American favor for his campaign. "It was all as show for the
embassy's benefit," says an official sympathetic to the DEA's view.
But William G. Walker, the new U.S. ambassador in San Salvador,
agreed to the idea, deciding it would be even
riskier to let Bustillo say he had spurned his offer.
      "The DEA report, according to U.S. officials who have seen
it, contained strong leads on air force drug smuggling, but not
conclusive proof. Much of the report apparently came from
sources within the air force itself. The document named Colonel
Manfredo Koenigsberg, then director of the air force pilots'
academy, as a key figure in alleged transshipment.
      "Koenigsberg had run S-2 in the early '80s, when the secret
jails a Ilopango were a route to "disappearance" for perhaps
hundreds of Salvadorans. Christian Democratic Party officials say
that in 1981 bodyguards for Antonio Morales Ehrlich, the
Christian Democratic head of the U.S. supported land reform,
caughtKoenigsberg waiting outside Morales Ehrlich's house
carrying a gun. He also commanded civil defense groups that
enforce security in barrios around Ilopango, including the
industrial area on the Boulevard of the Army, and he maintained
close ties to S-2. He supervised the air force DC-6 shopping trips
toPanama, sometimes flying the plane himself.
      "After El Salvador's presidential elections in March 1989
U.S. officials briefed Bustillo on the DEA report. At that point,
U.S. officials told me, Bustillo tried to fire Koenigsberg.
Reportedly he made his accusation directly to Vides, still defense
minister at the time. But Koenigsberg insisted on his innocence,
and for reasons that are still unclear, Vides took no action.
Apparently Koenigsberg was one of the few Salvadorans who could
cross Bustillo and survive, perhaps because he was on good terms
with Colonel Rene Emilio Ponce, the army chief of staff who was
Bustillo's rival for the defense minister post.
      "Bustillo's bid for defense minister, a job that would have
given him overall control of the armed forces, was a joint project
with d'Aubuisson and other hardline leaders of the right-wing
Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA). D'Aubuisson got
Cristiani, the new president, to promise Bustillo the job. Bustillo
had a strong claim: he was the senior officer on active duty. The
rightwing had won at the polls, seemingly validating his worldview.
And he had alwaysbeen able to deal with the United States."  
 
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 * Origin: If you come to take my gun, remember I'm armed (1:231/110)

Message number 332 in "AEN_NEWS"
Date: 01-17-93  08:15
From: Linda Thompson
To:   Donald Roop
Subj: GOVT Drug Traffic - 10

MSGID: 1:231/110 2B527E14
EVIDENCE OF GOVERNMENT TRAFFICKING IN COCAINE
AND COVERUP BY THOSE PARDONED:

Congressional Record -- House
Wednesday, June 20, 1990
101st Cong. 2nd Sess.
136 Cong Rec H 3834
REFERENCE: Vol. 136 No. 79
TITLE: PLAYING POLITICS WITH THE COURTS OF THIS
COUNTRY
SPEAKER: Mr. TRAFICANT

      "Let us tell it like it is. On the other hand, take Timothy
Ryan, please, someone take Ryan. He admitted using  cocaine,
and the President put him in charge of the savings and loan
bailout."

      "Well, look here, folks. The Russian comic said it the best.
What a country. Jimmy Bakker and Zsa Zsa Gabor will do more jail
time than all the Republicans busted in the  Iran-Contra  affair
and the hsavings and loan ripoff. It doesn't pay to be a Democrat,
and I am saying the Republicans are playing politics with the
courts of this country."
136 Cong Rec H 3834

Congressional Record -- Senate
Thursday, May 4, 1989;
(Legislative day of Tuesday, January 3, 1989)
101st Cong. 1st Sess.
135 Cong Rec S 4880
REFERENCE: Vol. 135 No. 54
TITLE: STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT
RESOLUTIONS
SPEAKER: Mr. ADAMS; Mr. KERRY

      "One of the people who testified before my subcommittee
was Richard Gregorie, Miami's top prosecutor in fighting the war
on drugs, the man who indicted General Noriega on drug charges
and Jorge Ochoa, the head of the Colombian Medellin Cartel.
Gregorie told me that our Government wasn't allowing him to win
the war on drugs -- that he'd give the State Department and
foreign policy people the grade of an "F" for their handling of the
war on drugs -- and that they'd interfered with his investigation
and prosecution of some major narcotics trafficking kingpins.

      "After the U.S. Ambassador stopped him from moving
ahead on the sting operation of a major cocaine  kingpin recently,
he decided that he should quit the war on drugs and go back to
the private practice of law."  
 
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Message number 333 in "AEN_NEWS"
Date: 01-17-93  08:16
From: Linda Thompson
To:   Donald Roop
Subj: GOVT Drug Traffic - 11

MSGID: 1:231/110 2B527E45
Excerpted from
Congressional Record -- House
Tuesday, September 27, 1988
100th Cong. 2nd Sess.
134 Cong Rec H 8467
REFERENCE: Vol. 134 No. 134
TITLE: WHERE WAS GEORGE BUSH? BUSH'S ROLE IN
NORIEGA AND THE WAR ON DRUGS
SPEAKER: Mr. BONIOR; Mr. GREEN

      "George Bush has failed to reduce dependence on drugs
and to effectively educate the American public against their use.
Under his watch, the number of  cocaine -related deaths doubled
between 1984 and 1986 alone according to the administration's
own figures. . . . Noriega permitted 4,400 pounds of  cocaine  to
be shipped through Panama to the Uted States between 1981 and
1986. He has sold Panama to the highest bidder -- whether it was
the Colombian drug cartel, Cuba, or the CIA.
      "Manuel Antonio Noriega has crushed his internal
opposition. In 1985 Hugo Spadafora, a prominent critic, was
detained by soldiers and later decapitated byone of Noriega's
military cronies. When President Nicolas Ardito-Barletta, a
U.S.-backed civilian, insisted on investigating the murder, Noriega
threatened his family and forced him to resign.
      "Manuel Antonio Noriega, after expanding his army from
10,000 to 16,000 in 4 years with U.S. military aid, now thumbs his
nose at the United States. He brandishes his sword in the air and
taunts the U.S. to come apfter him. Like the Ayatollah in Iran, he
threatens to use our own weapons, given as an ally, against us.
      "Where was George Bush when all this was going on? He
was there and he did nothing.
      "He says he didn't know Noriega was involved in drugs until
Noriega was indicted in Florida in February 1988.
      "In testimony before the Senate, Norman Bailey, a former
National Security Council aide, said references to meetings
Noriega held with major Latin American drug traffickers appeared
in 1983 and in 1985 in a daily summary of top secret U.S.
intelligence known as the "NID," or National Intelligence Daily.
      "Bailey said:
            "'Available to me as an officer of the NSC and
available to any authorized official of the U.S. Government, is a
plethora of human intelligence, electronic intercepts, and satellite
and overflight photography that taken together, constitute not just
a smoking gun, but rather a 21-cannon barrage of evidence.'"
      "Bailey said the information was overlooked because
Noriega was a "triple agent," working simultaneously for the CIA,
for Cuba, and for the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.  
 
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Message number 334 in "AEN_NEWS"
Date: 01-17-93  08:16
From: Linda Thompson
To:   Donald Roop
Subj: GOVT Drug Traffic - 12

MSGID: 1:231/110 2B527E70
      "Well, whoever Noriega was working for, it's clear he wasn't
working in the best interests of the United States.
      "Noriega has been a paid CIA asset since the late 1960's
including the period when Bush served as CIA Director.
According to a report in the Miami Herald on February 7, Noriega
and former CIA Director William Casey conferred frequently both
in Panama and in Washington, DC. According to a U.S.
intelligence adviser, Casey was Noriega's virtual case officer," an
intelligence term used to describe the control officer of a foreign
agent. [Emphasis added]
      "Not only was Noriega up to his eyeballs in drugs, he also
helped aid the Contras at a time when the U.S. Government was
forbidden to assist them. In fact, it was the Contras who kept
Noriega out of harm's way.
      "Francis McNeil, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
of Intelligence and Research, testified before a Senate committee
in April 1988 that high-ranking U.S. officials deliberately
overlooked the drug connection because they wanted Noriega's
help in aiding the Contras. "A decision was made to put
Noriega on the shelf until Nicaragua was settled," McNeil said.
      "According to McNeil, Noriega met with CIA Director Casey
on November 1, 1985.A Casey memo on the session "made clear
that he let Noriega off the hook" on
drugs. Noriega felt "if he could keep us happy on Nicaragua, he
could do as he pleased," McNeil said.  Even the Drug
Enforcement Agency had a close working relationship with
Noriega. According to a February 7, 1988, article in the New York
Times, DEA law enforcement officials said that the general was a
valuable source of information on drug trafficking in the region
for years and that his tips led to the seizure of major drug
shipments.
      "That's hardly surprising given Noriega's own involvement
in such shipments.
      "But Noriega's cozy relationship with the Reagan-Bush
administration began to sour in 1985 with the assassination of
Sapadafora. Only then did 13 years of evidence against Noriega
begin to make a difference over at the White House.
      "When confronted with the overwhelming evidence against
Noriega, all Bush could say in defense of his administration's
dealings was that sometimes policymakers had to work with "less
than savory characters" who "don't pass the Sunday-school muster."  
 
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Message number 335 in "AEN_NEWS"
Date: 01-17-93  08:17
From: Linda Thompson
To:   Donald Roop
Subj: GOVT Drug Traffic - 13

MSGID: 1:231/110 2B527EA6
COVERUP OF DRUGS AND ARMS RUNNING BY THE US GOVERNMENT:
REDUCTION OF SENTENCE OF DIRK STOFFBERG ARMS DEALER AND ASSASSIN

Excerpted from
Congressional Record -- House Wednesday, February 5, 1992
102nd Cong. 2nd Sess. 138 Cong Rec H 306
REFERENCE: Vol. 138 No. 13 TITLE: PRIVILEGES OF THE HOUSE -- RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING HOUSE BIPARTISAN LEGAL ADVISORY GROUP TO CONDUCT INQUIRY INTO
FACTS AND
CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING SENTENCING OF DIRK STOFFBERG

   On January 19, 1992, the chief counsel of the House Committee
on Foreign Affairs wrote to a Federal district judge in New York
requesting a reduced sentence for a convicted arms dealer on
grounds that he had cooperated in an on-going investigation by
the committee into the so-called October Surprise.  Based on this
representation, the judge reduced the sentence from 13 months
to the 8 1/2 months already served based on "the desirability of
assisting Congress." The judge went on to make clear that the arm
s dealer would have received a longer term of imprisonment, and
I quote, "were it not for the intervention of Congress.". 138 Cong
Rec H 306, 307.  The letter in its entirety is as follows:

"Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC, January 10, 1992
Hon. Jack B. Weinstein
U.S. District Court Judge
U.S. District Court
Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, NY.

"Dear Judge Weinstein:

      "Mr. Dirk Francois Stoffberg has to date provided the
House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs with
substantial assistance in an on-going investigation. It is expected
that this substantial assistance will continue into the future.
      "In addition, Mr. Stoffberg has offered to have his
testimony preserved by deposition. He has also agreed to testify at
any open or closed Congressional hearing if and when requested
to do so. Our investigation pertains to the question whether the
52 Americans taken captive in Iran were held past the election of
1980 in violation of any U.S. laws. This issue is commonly referred
to as the "October Surprise."
      "Although Mr. Stoffberg's cooperation may not lead to any
criminal action, the information which he has voluntarily provided
to us has already been helpful and, to some extent, has been
corroborated by other evidence. I would, therefore, request that
Mr. Stoffberg's cooperation be taken into consideration by you in
the determination of his sentence.
      "I would be pleased to discuss the matter of Mr. Stoffberg's
cooperation with you or your law clerk at any time before Mr.
Stoffberg's sentencing.

     "Sincerely yours,
     R. Spencer Oliver,
     Chief Counsel."
138 Cong Rec H 306, 308.

      Mr. HYDE. (Referring to Mr. Stoffberg) "[H]e conspired to
bring over a thousand weapons into Chile in violation of United
States laws and, according to articles in the press, he may be part
of a crack hit squad involved in international assassination.

      He fought extradition. Our agents, United States
Government agents, trapped him in Germany. He fought the
extradition back to New York at great taxpayer expense. We
brought this man to court. His lawyer advised him to plead guilty
because the evidence against him was so overwhelming. And as a
result of this intervention, he served no further time in jail.

      By the way, he refused to cooperate with the Department
of Justice and U.S. prosecutors to help them obtain convictions
against the other conspirators.
138 Cong Rec H 306, 311.  
 
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