Dems set to roll over for Qaeda architect Gates

Robert Gates was an integral part of the gun-running, drug-running, and death squad murders lumped under the heading of the Iran-Contra scandal. Gates started in Iran-contra as a stooge of William Casey, and continued under Bush the elder.

When Gates was nominated by Reagan to be head of the CIA in 1987, his role in Iran-contra crimes was already so filthy and so blatant that he was forced to drop out of contention under questioning. In doing this, Gates was seeking to defend his new master, George H.W. Bush, who at that time was preparing a presidential bid for 1988. The elder Bush was the czar of all Reagan-Bush covert operations, including Iran-contra. Gates fell on his sword to avoid revelations which would have doomed the candidacy of Bush the elder. Payback for Gates came in June 1991, when he was nominated once again to be head of the CIA, this time by Bush the elder. Sam Nunn and some others posed embarrassing questions, but this time the cover-up of Gates’ Iran-contra role was supervised by Sen. David Boren of the Bush Skull & Bones clique. The Democrats, intimated by the elder Bush’s apparent victory in the first Gulf war, rolled over. If Gates was too dirty to even get to a vote in committee in 1987, how can he be acceptable today? If Democratic Senators like Levin and Biden opposed Gates in 1991, how can they find him acceptable for a much more important post at a time of far greater crisis?

The Bush regime has become infamous for fixing the facts and the intelligence to suit the pre-determined policy of aggression and adventurism. As Pentagon chief, Gates would control the majority of the US intelligence budget. His track record promises nothing but more faked intelligence. In September 1991, Time Magazine cited widespread reports that Gates "cooked the books" while he was at the CIA to support the political demands of the Reagan and Bush regimes. A New York Times editorial of November 4, 1991 concluded that "charges that Mr. Gates slanted intelligence assessments, leaving Congress in the dark and more amenable to administration policy, stand unrefuted." George Shultz reports in his memoirs that he “felt that Gates was giving me an idealized picture of what was an altogether different reality,” and complained to Gates on January 5, 1987, "I don't have any confidence in the intelligence community… I feel you try to manipulate me. So you have a very dissatisfied customer. If this were a business, I'd find myself another supplier." The Senate would be well advised to find itself another supplier today. Will Gates resist the new attacks on Iran, Syria. North Korea, demanded by Cheney and the neocons? His assurances in this regard are worthless.

In the final report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, Lawrence Walsh left little doubt that he believed Gates had given perjured testimony during that investigation. But Walsh concluded that the matters involved were so complicated that it would be very difficult to prove them before a jury. For this reason and for no other, Gates did not face criminal charges for perjury.

Most damning of all is the fact that Gates was one of the founders of al Qaeda, the CIA’s Arab Legion which was assembled to attack the Soviets in Afghanistan. Gates is thus part of the infrastructure that produced the patsies of 9/11:

Webster G. Tarpley