Inspector: CIA Kept Ties With Alleged
Traffickers

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 17, 1998; Page A12 

The CIA did not "expeditiously" cut off relations with alleged drug
traffickers who supported contra Nicaraguan rebels in the 1980s, CIA
Inspector General Frederick R. Hitz told the House intelligence
committee yesterday.

Hitz for the first time said publicly that the CIA was aware of
allegations that "dozens of people and a number of companies connected
in some fashion to the contra program" were involved in drug
trafficking.

"Let me be frank," Hitz added, "there are instances where CIA did not, in
an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with
individuals supporting the contra program who were alleged to have
engaged in drug-trafficking activity or take action to resolve the
allegations."

Hitz said some of the alleged trafficking involved bringing drugs into
the United States. But, he added, investigators "found no evidence . . . of
any conspiracy by CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United
States."

The allegations about drug traffickers linked to the CIA and the
U.S.-backed anti-Sandinista rebels, as well as the response to the
charges by CIA case officers and top officials, will be detailed in a
600-page classified report scheduled to be sent to Congress later this
month, Hitz said.

The inspector general also said that under an agreement in 1982
between then-Attorney General William French Smith and the CIA,
agency officers were not required to report allegations of drug
trafficking involving non-employees, which was defined as meaning
paid and non-paid "assets [meaning agents], pilots who ferried supplies
to the contras, as well as contra officials and others."

This agreement, which has not previously been revealed, came at a time
when there were allegations that the CIA was using drug dealers in its
controversial covert operation to bring down the leftist Sandinista
government in Nicaragua.

According to Hitz, this policy was modified in 1986 when the agency
was prohibited from paying U.S. dollars to any individual or company
found to be involved in drug dealing.

Where the allegations "were flimsy," he said, agency officers continued
operating with the individuals involved and investigations into whether
they were dealing in drugs were not done "as expeditiously as they
should have been."

Yesterday's hearing was called to review the inspector general's report,
which was triggered by a series of articles published in the San Jose
Mercury News in August 1996 that alleged a CIA connection to the
introduction of crack cocaine into South Central Los Angeles by
Nicaraguan drug dealers. Hitz has reported he found "no evidence" to
indicate that past or present CIA employees, or agents acting for the
agency were associated with the drug dealers mentioned in the
newspaper's series.

Yesterday Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said Hitz's initial report "lacks
credibility and its conclusions should be dismissed."

Hitz's disclosures led Rep. Norman D. Dicks (Wash.), the ranking
Democrat on the intelligence panel, to call for more committee
hearings, including possible testimony from former Reagan White House
aide Oliver L. North, who coordinated fund-raising for the contras. 

	    © Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company

This document resides at http://speech.csun.edu/ben/news/cia/980319.wp.html