From Wiki (Dec 13, 2007):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_Affair
(In) 1996 . . . journalist Gary Webb published reports in the San Jose Mercury News,<39> and later in his book Dark Alliance,<40> detailing how Contras had distributed crack cocaine into Los Angeles to fund weapons purchases. These reports were initially attacked by various other newspapers, which attempted to debunk the link, citing official reports that apparently cleared the CIA.
The Wall Street Journal reported on January 29, 1997 <41> on activities at the Mena, Arkansas airport allegedly involved then-governor Bill Clinton in a coverup of illegal drug-trading activity. The Wall Street Journal article goes on to state:
At the center of the web of speculation spun around Mena are a few undisputed facts: One of the most successful drug informants in U.S. history, smuggler Barry Seal, based his air operation at Mena. At the height of his career he was importing as much as 1,000 pounds of cocaine per month, and had a personal fortune estimated at more than $50 million. After becoming an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, he worked at least once with the CIA, in a Sandinista drug sting. He was gunned down by Colombian hit men in Baton Rouge, La., in 1986; eight months later, one of his planes—with an Arkansas pilot at the wheel and Eugene Hasenfus in the cargo bay—was shot down over Nicaragua with a load of Contra supplies.
In 1998, CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz published a two-volume report<42> that substantiated many of Webb's claims, and described how 50 contras and contra-related entities involved in the drug trade had been protected from law enforcement activity by the Reagan-Bush administration, and documented a cover-up of evidence relating to these activities. The report also showed that Oliver North and the NSC were aware of these activities. A report later that same year by the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Bromwich also came to similar conclusions.
Here's another excerpt of the WSJ article, referenced above, that reported the knowledge of then Gov. Clinton of the Contra drug running scheme out of Mena, AK. Reprinted here:
http://www.idfiles.com/menamystciadis.htm
Jan. 29, 1997
The Wall Street Journal
Mysterious Mena:
CIA Discloses,
Leach Disposes
By MICAH MORRISON
(. . .)
(L)ocal attempts (in Arkansas) to investigate Mena were tanked twice by the Mr. Clinton's administration in Little Rock, which refused to allocate funds. And in July 1995, a former member of Gov. Clinton's security staff, Arkansas State Trooper L.D. Brown, suddenly stepped forward claiming he had worked with the CIA and Seal running guns to the Contras--and cocaine back to the U.S. Mr. Brown says that when he informed the governor about the drug flights, Mr. Clinton replied, "that's Lasater's deal"--a reference to Little Rock bond daddy Dan Lasater, a Clinton crony later convicted on an apparently unrelated cocaine distribution charge.
The CIA report does not directly address the Lasater allegation. It says trooper Brown applied to the agency but was not offered employment and was not "otherwise associated with CIA." Barry Seal was associated with CIA, but only for "a two-day period" while his plane was being outfitted for the DEA's Sandinista sting. The CIA also says it found no evidence of tampering in earlier money-laundering prosecutions, as several Arkansas investigators have charged.
And what does the CIA say about Mr. Clinton's knowledge of CIA activities at Mena? It gives its boss wiggle room that parses nicely with his statement that "they didn't tell me anything." In response to Mr. Leach's question about whether information was conveyed to Arkansas officials in the 1980s, the report states that "interface with local officials was handled by the other federal agency" involved in the joint Mena exercise, side-stepping the issue of what Mr. Clinton knew.
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