Clandestine Contra Backer Now Condi's Key Advisor

From the Daily Ireland, a tale that makes nonsense of any idea that Condi may have had a split with Dubya over the Israel/Lebanon conflict. It reminds me yet again of how deliberate the myopia among the American mainstream media is when it comes to the dubious histories of so many in the Bush administration and among the ranks of their most vocal supporters.

Elliot Abrams once used the alias Mr Kenilworth to fly to London and secretly ask the Sultan of Brunei for $10 million (£5.3 million; €7.8 million) to fund the CIA-backed Contras’ war on the Sandinistas.

His clandestine caper was part of the Iran-Contra affair and earned him temporary banishment from Washington’s elite after he had pleaded guilty to two misdemeanour charges.

These days, Mr Abrams does not need to hide his identity as he jets around in style with US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, having become one of her key advisers on the Middle East. It certainly has been a long and heady return to the centre of power for the former Reagan administration hawk who gained prominence in the early 1980s as one of the chief defenders of Ronald Reagan's covert wars in Central America.

...When the whole Iran-Contra scandal exploded in the late 1980s, Mr Abrams was compelled to testify before Congress about his role. Senator Tom Eagleton told Mr Abrams that his refusal to cooperate could earn him “slammer time”. Mr Abrams replied: “You’ve heard my testimony.” This prompted Mr Eagleton to retort: “I’ve heard it and I want to puke.”

Mr Abrams subsequently pleaded guilty to giving false testimony in relation to the Iran-Contra affair, for which he was sentenced to two years’ probation and 100 hours of community service. President George Bush Sr pardoned him in one of his last presidential acts in 1992.

Then Mr Abrams went to work for a number of Washington think-tanks and became a leading light within the neocon movement that would come to hold such sway in the administration of George W Bush.

In 2001, Mr Bush appointed Mr Abrams senior director of the National Security Council. In February 2005, Mr Bush elevated him to the post of deputy national security adviser. Later that year, Mr Bush also appointed Mr Abrams to head his Global Democracy Strategy, which aims to “spread democracy across the globe”.
Mr Abrams has long been an ardent defender of Israel within the Washington beltway and has opposed US “land-for-peace” proposals. As such, some Arab-American groups have expressed concern about his influential posting next to Condoleezza Rice during the current war in the Middle East.

Asked to comment on Mr Abrams in 1989, Admiral William Crowe, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “This snake is hard to kill.” Mr Abrams’ journey back into the heart of the US foreign policy apparatus seems to have proven Admiral Crowe very prescient indeed.