3.1 KiB
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| Your Policy Preference | 2026-10-12 | published | In February 1991 the NSC legal adviser told Brent Scowcroft he had informed Robert Mueller of Scowcroft's reluctance to indict Iraqi officials in the BNL case. |
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Your Policy Preference
On May 29, 1990, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's office in Atlanta briefed C. Nicholas Rostow, legal adviser to the National Security Council, at the State Department on their investigation of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro branch there. Rostow's memorandum of the meeting to Robert Gates recorded that the U.S. Attorney planned to indict six Iraqi officials and that, "whether or not Iraqi officials are defendants," the prosecution "would generate embarrassing information about the CCC program and Iraq's involvement in bank fraud, misrepresentations to U.S. Government agencies, and corruption." Gates chaired the NSC Deputies Committee on Iraq later that day.1
On February 8, 1991, Rostow wrote to National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft about the BNL indictment: "I have informed Robert Mueller ... of your reluctance to seek an indictment of Iraqi government officials whom we are unlikely to take into custody. Bill Barr may call you to discuss this matter. ... In the event Barr calls you about this matter, I recommend that, as part of the defense of your policy preference not to go forward, you carefully question him with respect to the [DOJ's] ..." Robert Mueller then headed the Justice Department's Criminal Division; William Barr was Deputy Attorney General.2
The indictment was returned on February 28, 1991. It named the Iraqi state Rafidain Bank and four Iraqi officials, and did not charge the Central Bank of Iraq, which had been named as a potential defendant. Mueller testified to the independent counsel Frederick B. Lacey that the decision not to indict the Central Bank was based on foreign policy considerations raised by the State and Treasury Departments.3
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Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, The Intelligence Community's Involvement in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) Affair, Committee Print S. Prt. 103-12, February 1993, pp. 51-52, quoting the memorandum from Rostow to Robert M. Gates, May 29, 1990. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/10312.pdf ↩︎
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Frederick B. Lacey, report of the Independent Counsel on the BNL investigation, in House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, Testimony of Former Employees of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Serial No. 103-95 (1994), p. 598, quoting the memorandum from Nicholas Rostow to Brent Scowcroft, February 8, 1991. https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit ↩︎
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Lacey report, in Serial No. 103-95, pp. 361-366, 413 and 598 (Mueller Tr. 24-26). https://archive.org/details/testimonyofforme1994unit ↩︎