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In House floor speeches, Rep. Henry Gonzalez has documented how pre-Gulf War U.S. policy helped Iraq develop weapons of mass destruction. But President George Bush, taking a page from one of the darkest chapters of the Nixon presidency, has enlisted the CIA as part of his campaign to derail the Texas Democrat's Iraqgate investigation. The CIA is investigating Gonzalez for revealing allegedly secret intelligence information, which it claims has harmed U.S. national security interests.
Involving the CIA in domestic political affairs is one of the few remaining taboos in U.S. politics, and so far, Bush has gotten away scot-free with it. His predecessor, Richard Nixon, was forced to resign a few days after the infamous "smoking gun" tape revealed that he had instructed White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman to tell CIA Director Richard Helms to refuse to cooperate with the FBI's investigation of Watergate.
While the media and the Washington pundits have duly reported the CIA's investigation of Gonzalez, they have failed to note the resemblance between the way Bush and Nixon instigated domestic involvement of the CIA to protect their administrations. Nor have the media explored the ominous political implications of Bush-the first former CIA director elected president- using the Agency to discredit his political foes.
The House Banking Committee, which Gonzalez chairs, began looking into pre-Gulf War U.S. policy toward Iraq in 1990. "We have determined that your statements in the Congressional Record on July 7, 1992, included information from a Top Secret compartmented and particularly sensitive document dated September 4, 1989, to which we gave your staff access," CIA Director Robert Gates wrote in a July 24 letter to Gonzalez.
"Because of the sources and methods underlying that information, I will ask for a damage assessment to determine the impact of the disclosure." Adm. William O. Studeman, acting CIA director while Gates was abroad, informed Gonzalez in a July 28 letter that the CIA's Office of Security would also assess Gonzalez's House floor speeches of July 21 and July 27, 1992. Studeman claimed that Gonzalez revealed other Top Secret intelligence information in these speeches. The maverick Mexican-American lawmaker from San Antonio, Texas, angrily denied the CIA's charges. "Your insinuation that I have revealed Top Secret, compartmented information is inflammatory and with- out merit," Gonzalez declared in a July 30 letter to Gates. "In fact, I have taken great pains to ensure that all information I have placed in the Congressional Record is of the broadest nature and readily available from public sources."
Gonzalez added he was "extremely disappointed that the CIA was allowing itself to be used to build a smokescreen around the president's flawed policies. The CIA should be above involving itself in the political problems of the administration." Gonzalez also charged that since spring, the CIA has not cooperated with the House Banking Committee. Attorney General William Barr, in a May 15, 1992, letter to the Texas Democrat, announced that the administration would no longer turn over classified documents to Gonzalez's committee without "specific assurances" that he won't make the information public.
Gonzalez, who has made public more classified U.S. doc- uments than anyone since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the "Pentagon Papers," believes Bush is using the CIA to taint the Iraqgate investigation. Again the parallel is clear. In 1971, Nixon's White House "plumbers," led by CIA operative E. Howard Hunt, launched a campaign to discredit former Pentagon analyst Ellsberg and even broke into his psychiatrist's office to search for incriminating dirt.
Meanwhile, Republicans on Capitol Hill escalated their vilification campaign against Gonzalez. House Minority Leader Robert Michel (R-Ill.) introduced a resolution in the House on August 4 that calls on the House Ethics Committee to investigate Gonzalez's release of documents, citing the CIA probe of the 32-year House veteran. Michel charged that Gonzalez has violated the House code of conduct, but he failed to note that lawmakers who disclose classified information on the House or Senate floor are exempted from the federal law against making intelligence secrets public. Although the attacks against Gonzalez continue, the growing body of evidence he is disclosing makes it increasingly difficult for the Bush administration to dismiss the allegations. And that, Gonzalez believes, is why Bush unleashed the CIA.
The administration's pro-Baghdad policy, spelled out in National Security Directive-26, adopted on October 2, 1989, was based on promoting U.S. trade with Iraq. The Commerce Department routinely approved applications from U.S. companies for the export to Iraq of "dual-use" technology, which has civilian and military applications.
"While the [Bush] policy did not permit the sale of bombs or something of that nature that would blow up," Gonzalez declared in a July 21 speech, "it clearly allowed the sale of the equipment needed to make them. The administration knew what Saddam Hussein was doing.... The head of Iraq's ambitious military industrialization efforts was Saddam's brother-in-law, ...Hussein Kamil, who directed the flow of over $2 billion in BNL commercial loans to various high-profile Iraqi weapons projects."
The progressive Texas Democrat contends that at a No- vember 8, 1989, meeting, the Bush administration used a secret CIA report in an internal battle. The issue was whether to provide Iraq with $1 billion in loan guarantees to buy U.S. farm exports issued by the Department of Agriculture's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). Previously, the Export-Import Bank and other federal agencies opposed full funding for Iraq because its deteriorating economy made Baghdad a poor credit risk.
"This time the CCC program for Iraq was approved," Gonzalez said in a July 7 speech. "The CIA report shows that unless the full $1 billion CCC program was approved, the president's goal of improving relations with Saddam Hussein as spelled out in NSD-26 would be frustrated." BNL-Atlanta made financial arrangements for the CCC program for Iraq.
The CIA report, Gonzalez pointed out, "indicates that BNL loans were used to fund Iraq's clandestine military procurement network...in the U.S. and Europe. The report indicates that several of the BNL-financed front companies in the network were secretly procuring technology for Iraq's missile programs and nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs."
The House Judiciary Committee, after several hearings, called on Barr July 9, 1992, to appoint an independent counsel to investigate Iraqgate. This move had been boosted when Frank DeGeorge, inspector general for the Commerce Department, admitted at a June 23, 1992, House Judiciary Committee hearing that Commerce Department officials altered information on 66 export licenses for Iraq which were turned over to congressional investigators. The export licenses were changed from "VEHICLES DESIGNED FOR MILITARY USE" to "COMMERCIAL UTILITY CARGO TRUCKS."
But Barr took a hard line when, on August 1- for the first time since the Ethics in Government Act created the independent councel mechanism--he rejected a request for an appointment. Instead, the Justice Department, he asserted, would continue its investigation of Iraqgate. Barr called the charges outlined by the House Judiciary Committee too "vague" to justify an independent counsel.
"First the attorney general denounces and obstructs congressional investigations and now blocks inquiries by a special counsel," Gonzalez responded the same day. "Barr is playing a dangerous game in a desperate effort to protect the Bush administration."
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