3 KiB
The Iran-Contra Affair was a political scandal in the United States that came to light between 1985 and 1987. This complex event involved the secret sale of arms to Iran by the Ronald Reagan administration. In exchange for these arms, American hostages held in Lebanon were to be released. The profits generated from these clandestine arms sales were then illegally diverted to fund the Contras, a right-wing rebel group operating in Nicaragua, circumventing a congressional ban on such aid.1
Several key figures were implicated in the affair. Oliver North, a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Marine Corps, emerged as a central figure. He was alleged to have received drug profits from Monzer Al-Kassar, a Syrian kingpin and arms dealer, which were then used to purchase arms for the Contras. The United States Tower Commission probe into Iran-gate specifically revealed that Al-Kassar had been paid $1.2 million by North's co-conspirator, General Richard Secord, to facilitate the movement of weapons from Israel to the Contras.1
Adnan Khashoggi, an international arms merchant, and Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms dealer, served as crucial middlemen in the arms-for-hostages exchange. Khashoggi was found to have borrowed money for these arms purchases from the now-bankrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International, with financial backing from Saudi and U.S. sources. Ari Ben-Menashe, a self-proclaimed Israeli military intelligence officer, played a role in exposing the scandal by tipping off an obscure Lebanese magazine. Furthermore, Barbara Honegger, a former Ronald Reagan White House aide, alleged in her book October Surprise that Monzer Al-Kassar's heroin smuggling network in Italy was utilized to launder North Atlantic Treaty Organization arms stocks, diverting them to Iran with the assistance of corrupt Italian intelligence officials linked to the secretive fascist Masonic lodge, P2.1
The Iran-Contra Affair was a significant component of Danny Casolaro's broader "The Octopus" investigation. Casolaro believed that this scandal was deeply interconnected with the PROMIS Software Scandal and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal. He obtained documents related to Iran-Contra arms deals, including photocopies of checks drawn on Bank of Credit and Commerce International accounts for Adnan Khashoggi and Manucher Ghorbanifar, from his confidante Bob Bickel. Bickel, in turn, had acquired these documents from October Surprise source Richard Brenneke. The name of Ian Stuart Spiro also appeared in Oliver North's personal notebooks documenting the Iran-Contra Affair, and Spiro's death was subsequently linked to a spy network and the affair itself.1
Footnotes
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Seymour, Cheri. The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010. ↩︎