And Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Gary Webb's findings WERE substantiated, cali. Sorry those facts escaped your keen observation of the 90s.
wikipedia has plenty of links to reports you can access:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_Affair>>>>>
Senator John Kerry's 1988 U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations report on Contra drug links, which was released on April 13, 1989, concluded that "senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems."<34> The Kerry Committee report further stated that members of the U.S. State Department "who provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking...and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers."<35> Kerry was suspicious of North's connection with Manuel Noriega, Panama's drug baron. According to the National Security Archive, Oliver North had been in contact with Noriega and had met him personally.
The report went on to say that "the Contra drug links included...payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies." Houses of the Congress began to raise questions about the drug-related allegations associated with the Contras, causing a review in the spring of 1986 of the allegations by the State Department, in conjunction with the Justice Department and relevant U.S. intelligence agencies.<36>
Former DEA agent Celerino Castillo alleged that Ilopango Airport in El Salvador was used by Contras for drug trafficking, with full knowledge of the CIA. He further alleged that his investigations were hindered by US government agencies. These allegations were part of an investigation by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, which however did not find substantial evidence to support Castillo's allegations.<37> Castillo also testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on the same allegations.<38>
The allegations resurfaced in 1996 when 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.
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