From: Brad Dolan Subject: (fwd) Gingrich Wants CIA to Spend $18 Million to Overthrow Government of Iran Message-ID: Date: Sun, 29 Oct 1995 09:20:59 -0500 (EST) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- The Wall Street Journal reports [27 October 1995, page A16] that US House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich "... is seeking to set aside an estimated $18 million in the US intelligence budget to finance a potential covert action aimed at ousting the Iranian government... For some years, the US has carried out a relatively low- level covert action that began before President Clinton took office in 1993... This action currently is budgeted in the range of $4 million annually.... Congressional Quarterly's Congressional Monitor published the first report on the issue in its editions yesterday... Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Arlen Specter ... has publicly called for a "dialogue" with Iran as the best US policy. Mr. Gingrich, by contrast... advocated a strategy that "ultimately is designed to force the replacement of the current regime in Iran..."..." A few observations. 1 - If we stipulate that these budget figures are correct, they provide some interesting insight into the debate which has periodically surfaced on news:alt.politics.org.cia concerning the size of the covert operations budget, which has been semi-officially estimated to be about 2% of either the entire ~$30 billion intelligence budget [as I have contended], or of the ~$3 billion CIA budget [which of course only accounts for about half the total funds at the disposal of CIA]. The debate has been over whether the covert operations budget is about ~$500 million [aka real money], or ~$50 million [ie, more money than I have, but peanuts in the larger scheme of things]. I would submit that the character of the reporting on this story substantiates the former rather than the later estimate. If we were spending only ~$50 million each year on covert ops, the headline would read "Gingrich Seeks 40% Increase in Covert Ops Budget!", whereas since we are actually spending ~$500 million, the focus of the story is on the increase in spending for the Iranian operation. 2 - Regardless of one's opinon's concerning the current political situation in Iran, it is rather difficult to imagine that the paltry sum of $18 million is likely to result in a stable regime with policies significantly more to the liking of Newt and Company. Iranian civic society is mobilized far more extensively than four decades ago when Kermit Roosevelt could pull a few wires and topple a government. 3 - Given the track record of the US intelligence community in Iran, it seems to me that CIA would be stuck between a rock and a hard place. An investment of a few tens of millions of dollars is unlikely to materially affect the situation. But it is difficult for me to imagine that a more robust investment, which could influence events, could escape notoriety and the probable backlash that would ensue. 4 - It seems to me that the main point of such an initiative would be to annoy the Iranian leadership, and to reinforce the current estrangement between Washington and Tehran. It is not immediately apparent to me whose interests are served as a result. But with the Pentagon looking for "rogue states" to justify continuing to spend Cold War levels of money on the military, keeping Tehran in the "hostile" column makes a lotta sense. Millions of dollars spent by CIA aggravating Tehran will produce tens of billions of dollars for US military contractors to build weapons... -- John Pike Federation of American Scientists http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/irp/ ---SnetMgr 0.60 [r0001] * Origin: snet-l@world.std.com <-> FidoNet (1:330/202)