La CIA , Drogas, y Nicaragua

[YeahMan]

CIA Had No Role in Crack Epidemic, House Probe Concludes

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Associated Press
Friday, May 12, 2000; Page A29


The CIA did not play a role in bringing crack cocaine into the Los Angeles area in the 1980s, the House intelligence committee concluded in a report yesterday.

The report, the latest in a series by investigatory bodies to exonerate the CIA, said no evidence was found of any conspiracy by CIA agents to bring drugs into the United States.

"Bottom line: The allegations were false," said committee Chairman Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.).

Allegations of CIA links to drug dealers surfaced in an August 1996 series published by the San Jose Mercury News, suggesting a San Francisco Bay area drug ring sold cocaine in Los Angeles and funneled profits to the Nicaraguan contra rebels for the better part of a decade.

"The committee found no evidence to support the allegations that CIA agents or assets associated with the contra movement were involved in the supply or sale of drugs in the Los Angeles area," the committee said in a report.

The committee noted that similar conclusions had been reached in previous inquiries by the CIA's inspector general, the Justice Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

"All the issues raised by the Mercury News articles were addressed in the investigation," said Rep. Julian C. Dixon (Calif.), the committee's senior Democratic member.

"I believe that the committee's effort, together with the work of the Justice Department and CIA [inspector general], thoroughly examined those issues," he said.

The newspaper series also reported that two Nicaraguan cocaine dealers, Oscar Danilo Blandon and Norwin Meneses, were civilian leaders of an anti-communist commando group formed and run by the CIA during the 1980s.

The House committee said it found "no evidence to support the allegations."

None of the paper's top editors was immediately available yesterday to comment on the report, Mercury News spokeswoman Patty Wise said.

In 1997, the executive editor of the Mercury News, Jerry Ceppos, wrote a column that critiqued the series, saying it "did not meet our standards" in key areas. Among other things, Ceppos said the series often presented only one interpretation of complex evidence, oversimplified the spread of crack and used graphics and language "that were open to misinterpretation."

The articles were followed by a storm of protests in urban areas such as South Central Los Angeles, with citizens demanding answers as to whether their communities had been ravaged by drugs to help pay for a foreign policy goal.

"The explosive nature of the story and the seriousness with which we view allegations of complicity in narcotics trafficking by any official U.S. agency led us to go the extra mile in our inquiry," Goss said in a statement.


© 2000 The Washington Post Company

[alaind]

Entonces lo que se da a entender es que la CIA no tuvo nada que ver...yeah right...they always know how to wash their hands of anything compromising.

Interesting article Luciano..thank you for sharing now I get to pass it on to my father a ver que opina el.