In an about turn last week, the Bush administration silently brought back an Iran Contra criminal into the fold to run two of our newly formed intelligence agencies. This is the guy during Iran Contra who went against Congress and devised his own foreign policy away from the eyes of his Commander-in-Chief Ronald Reagan, while acting as the National Security Advisor.
He believed the Boland Amendment never applied to to himself or the National Security Council staff. Poindexter repeatedly lied to Congress about his role in helping the Contras and shredded thousands of documents, including a Presidential finding retroactively authorizing missile sales to Iran and characterizing these sales as straight arms for hostages swap. He was indicted for defrauding the US government and obstructing justice in 1988.

For those of you too young to know much about this debacle, a "Secret Team" was formed of CIA and military personnel to move arms and missiles illegally to shore up their defense contractors (more cronyism). Communism, or the "fear of communism", and patriotism was bantered about as the reason for the illegal weapons sales, however, of the more than 16 million dollars profit rom the missile sales to Iran, less than one quarter of that actually made it to the Contras. In the interim, they set up operations with Manuel Noreiga, Panama's strongman and well-known international drug dealer. The rest of the money went....well.....to the top CEO's of their private company!
LOL

However, now Poindexter is in charge of snooping on Americans. "Communists" beware!

*************************************************8

How one of the two brains behind the Iran-Contra scandal this week became one of America's most powerful men

John Sutherland
Monday February 18, 2002
The Guardian

Last Wednesday something strange happened. The American population was instructed to panic. Place themselves, that is, on a state of highest vigilance. Some cataclysmic act of terrorism would happen - within hours. But nothing terrible happened. Something creepy did. On Thursday there was an inconspicuous news item. John M Poindexter had been appointed to head a new agency "to counter attacks on the US", such as Wednesday's no-show. It is equivalent, in British terms, to Jeffrey Archer being made chancellor of the exchequer.

The agency which Poindexter will run is called the Information Awareness Office. You want to know what that is? Think, Big Brother is Watching You. IAO will supply federal officials with "instant" analysis on what is being written on email and said on phones all over the US. Domestic espionage. You want to test it out? Text-message any American friend, "Bmb OK. Allah gr8".

The IAO is one of two new offshoots of the Pentagon-based Darpa - the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (it's venerable ancestor, Arpa, invented the internet). The other new agency is called the Information Exploitation Office. Its mission is to supply similarly instant analysis about overseas enemy targets. IEO will employ the computerised sensor networks that have proved so successful in Afghanistan. And, from now on, America - with IEO guiding its smart weaponry - will launch sneak attacks. No more Mr Nice Guy.

IOA and IEO will get a big chunk of the $48bn of the taxpayers' money George Bush is pumping into his war on the evildoers. Never again will it be said that US intelligence agencies went to sleep on the job - or that they were too careful about the American citizen's civil rights to do that job. No more Mr Scrupulous Guy.

Poindexter is frighteningly smart and very unscrupulous. He graduated top of his class at the Naval Academy in 1958 and went on to a PhD in physics at the California Institute of Technology. He returned to uniform as America's best-educated sailor. He wasn't a desk warrior. Poindexter commanded missile destroyers. He won medals to hang alongside his academic diplomas. He is the model for Tom Clancy's hero, Jack Ryan.

After the assassination attempt on President Reagan in 1981, Poindexter was called in to review White House security. Reagan was impressed and appointed him a national security adviser, in 1983, with the rank of vice-admiral.

At this point, things started to go wrong. He and Oliver North were found to be up to their necks in the Iran-Contra (guns for hostages) scam, which blew up in 1986. Poindexter was charged and found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and the destruction of evidence in 1990; this was overturned on appeal the following year. The case against them was that they meticulously wiped out 5,000 incriminating emails - but forgot about the back-up tapes. Even smart guys goof sometimes.

Poindexter was also accused by a Costa Rican government commission of being involved in cocaine trafficking to raise funds for the contras, though this was never proved (you can find details in the Guardian, July 22 1989).

His excuse for his behaviour was brazen: "I made a very deliberate decision not to tell the president so that I could insulate him from the decision and provide some future deniability for the president if it ever leaked out." In other words, he gave himself the right to run America's foreign policy behind the back of the commander in chief. Who the hell voted for John M Poindexter?

Both North and Poindexter have gone on to do well. North has a radio chat programme that rivals Rush Limbaugh in rightwing virulence. Poindexter was recruited by Syntek Technologies, a firm in bed with Darpa. His hand was back in the hi-tech cookie jar. As a company vice-president, Poindexter helped develop Genoa - an "intelligence mining, information harvesting" system designed to explore (clandestinely) large computer databases. Listen in on America's electronic conversations, that is.

Poindexter is, once again, one of the most powerful men in America. His job description is "crisis manager". How do you put a man with Poindexter's record back in the manager's box? Well, a spurious crisis would be convenient. Now do you understand what was going on last Wednesday - or must I spell it out for you?

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4358017,00.html