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Jewish World Review Oct. 30, 2000 / 1 Mar-Cheshvan, 5761
Philip Terzian
It begins in 1992, when then-Senators Gore, D-Tenn. and John McCain, R-Ariz, co-sponsored
legislation -- the Iran-Iraq Nonproliferation Act -- that imposes sanctions on countries that
sell advanced weapons to regimes that the State Department classifies as patrons of terrorism,
such as Iran. At the time, Senator Gore was particularly eloquent in his concern that, in the
post-Cold War world, the newest dangers faced by the West include "rogue states" supplied with
sophisticated, perhaps even nuclear, weaponry. To be sure, the definition of a rogue state can
be elastic; but the Iran of today, struggling between a reformist civil government and a
clerical dictatorship, is different from the Iran of the 1990s, sponsor of terror in its
region, and around the world.
Still, Al Gore was only a senator in 1992 when he joined forces with John McCain. By the
mid-90s he was vice president, specializing in (among other things) U.S. relations with Russia.
In his dealings with the Yeltsin government, Gore had cultivated an especially close
relationship with Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Russian prime minister, and a prominent member of
the Kremlin kleptocracy. To be sure, Mr. Gore might not have been aware of Chernomyrdin's
larcenous tendencies; but Chernomyrdin got an accurate sense of Al Gore.
And so, in 1995, he entered into a secret agreement, negotiated by Gore, hat would allow
Russia to continue selling advanced weaponry to Iran, without triggering American sanctions,
until the end of 1999. Part of the deal, apparently, was that Congress would not be told about
this circumvention of the law, and it was not. And with good reason: If Congress had learned
that the Gore-McCain law was being violated -- and not only by Gore, of all people, but in ways
that strengthened Iran, of all places -- the subsequent scandal could have been explosive.
Of course, the gods are not to be mocked. It turns out that not only did the Clinton-Gore
administration violate the law by sanctioning secret Russian arms sales to Iran, but that the
Russians have declined to abide by the deal. The clandestine sales of diesel submarines,
torpedoes, anti-ship mines, tanks and armored personnel carriers were supposed to stop by the
end of 1999. But the bazaar remains open, and Gore, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and
her deputy, Strobe Talbott, have repeatedly complained (in vain) to the Putin government. This
must be especially galling for Talbott, a former Time magazine writer, who is regarded as the
resident authority on Russia, and was clearly not included in the Gore-Chernomyrdin embrace.
As it happens, Congress never did learn about the secret Russian arms deal until The New
York Times broke the story on Oct. 13, and four days later The Washington Times revealed that
an element of the agreement -- spelled out in an extraordinary "Dear Al" letter from
Chernomyrdin -- was that details should "not ... be conveyed to third parties, including the
U.S. Congress." Obviously, the only thing that irritates Congress more than executive
misconduct is the knowledge that it has been consistently misled. And so, in a series of
closed-door meetings this past week, Congress asked the Clinton-Gore administration to tell the
truth.
What do you suppose happened? Not only did the administration decline to reveal the
contents of the deal, it refused access to an exchange of letters between hernomyrdin and
Madeleine Albright on the subject, and would not even furnish a list of the weaponry sold to
Iran. To make matters worse, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., trying to be helpful, told
reporters that he, at least, had been briefed about the deal in 1995. Assuming that Mr.
Hamilton is correct, and certain members of Congress were informed, that means the
administration pointedly excluded Republicans -- who, by 1995, controlled both houses of
Congress.
None of this has proved to be of much interest to the TV networks, almost all of whom have
ignored the story, until the co-host of "Good Morning America" (ABC) reluctantly passed along a
viewer question to Al Gore: "Did you allow Russian weapon sales to iran to continue in defiance
of the law you personally co-sponsored?" Gore's response was predictable: Of course, he had
done nothing wrong, and by the way, the weapons Russia secretly sold to Iran were not covered
by the Gore-McCain sanctions. Not true, declares Senator McCain, Gore's co-author: "If the
administration has acquiesced in the sales, then I believe they have violated both the intent
and the letter of the
10/25/00: The election is close, but ...
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