"Dirty Hands" returns

One thing I'll say for Bush is that he's dependable. You can absolutely count on him, in any given situation, to make the absolutely worst choice possible. It's like a gift, albeit an evil one.

So this is the deal: John Negroponte, former US ambassador to Honduras during the early 80s... friend to the Contras, military hardliners, and death squads... and responsible for the cover-up of massive human rights abuses... has just been named by Bush to be the first National Intelligence Director.

He will wield unprecedented power over 15 espionage and intelligence agencies, including the CIA. He will oversee a $40 billion budget, and deliver daily intelligence briefs to Bush.

Yep, with the US still reeling from the revelations of abuses and torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, this is just the guy we want whispering in Bush's ear.

If you can stomach it.... here's the story:

Negroponte draws criticism south of border

By Lisa J. Adams, AP

Central American politicians and human rights activists issued stinging criticism Thursday of John Negroponte, nominated to become America's first intelligence director, citing the career diplomat's active backing for the Contra rebels and support for a government involved in human rights abuses.

John Negroponte, now U.S. ambassador to Iraq, served as ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, a time of intense conflict in Central America in which the United States played a central role.

Negroponte assisted the U.S.-backed Contra rebels in their attempt to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandinista government. In the process, activists claim, he ignored human rights abuses by the Contras and their Honduran hosts.

The effort to oust Daniel Ortega's Sandinista government produced a huge scandal in the United States when it was learned the United States secretly sold arms to Iran and used the money to fund the Contra operation.

"What an outrage!" said Bertha Oliva, the coordinator of the Committee for Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras, an independent group representing civilians believed to have vanished while in government custody. "The United States has invented a position to reward someone who was a dangerous person."

In Nicaragua, Tomas Borge, former interior minister for the Sandinista regime and a current leader of the Sandinista opposition party, said Negroponte "is the most efficient and ideal representative for the Bush administration's primitive international security policy."

"He is faithful to Bush's excessive and ultra-right policy in Iraq and other parts of the world," he said.

The new U.S. intelligence chief has denied accusations that his reports to Washington dramatically underplayed human rights problems in Honduras.

During 2001 confirmation hearings for his U.N. ambassadorship - an appointment that was delayed for six months because of the controversy over his tenure in Honduras - Negroponte testified that he did not believe death squads were operating in Honduras.

However, a 1993 Honduran government human rights report said 184 suspected leftists had disappeared in government custody, many of them at the hands of a U.S. trained Honduran army battalion.

"It was obvious that he knew what was happening," said Leo Valladeres, a law professor in Honduras who wrote the report. "They used outlaw methods to kill ... and it is absolutely impossible to believe that a diplomatic mission such as that of the United States was unaware of the situation faced by Honduras and Central America."

In neighboring Guatemala, a U.S.-supported government that was engaged in battle with left-wing rebels trained paramilitary squads that were found later to have committed large-scale civilian massacres.

In El Salvador, U.S.-trained army squads hunted down leftist rebels in offensives fraught with human rights abuses.

Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archives in Washington, said declassified documents on the Iran-Contra scandal also showed that Negroponte was involved in seeking more guns for the Contras - "the role that normally would be reserved for the (CIA) station chief."

Kornbluh also said the documents he cited showed that Negroponte helped clear the way for a secret agreement under which the United States would provide more CIA money to Honduran army generals and additional military and economic aid to the country. In exchange, he said, Honduras agreed to allow the Contras to continue operating on Honduran soil.

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Reporters Freddy Cuevas and Filadelfo Aleman contributed to this story from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and Managua, Nicaragua.

Posted by elcanche at February 18, 2005 05:20 PM