Why_Yes_I_Do. I recollect the questin to one military man from a congress critter: Sir, you spent massively on security for your own home. Why? Is there someone that is that dangerous? Oliver North responded: Yes sir. Osama Bin Laden.
I recorded those hearings and watched every bit of them.
Originally Posted by Why_Yes_I_Do
Wasn't he the one trading arms for money to circumvent Congress and support the Osama like Contras in Nicaragua?:
You are full of shit on the Osama bin laden claim. He wasn't even on our radar in 1987...he was basically on our side fighting the Soviets.
Snopes.com
Become a Member
Submit a Topic
Shop
Latest
Top
Fact Checks
Collections
News
Archives
Randomizer
Fact Checks
September 11th
Oliver North Warned of Osama bin Laden in 1987
Did Oliver North warn Congress about Osama bin Laden during the Iran-Contra hearings?
David Mikkelson
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Pinterest
Share on Reddit
Share via Email
Image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr
‘Alexa, What Will Happen to Florida in 2025?’
Claim
During the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings, Oliver North warned Congress that Osama bin Laden was "the most evil person alive" and that "an assassin team [should] be formed to eliminate him and his men from the face of the earth."
Rating
False
False
About this rating
Origin
For most of us who watched the televised Joint Hearings Before the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition and the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran (better known as the “Iran-Contra hearings,” held by Congress to determine whether the Reagan administration had secretly and illegally sold arms to Iran in order to secure the release of American hostages, then used the profits from those sales to fund the contra rebels in Nicaragua) in 1987, the enduring image we came away with was a memory of an unapologetic and resolute Lt. Col. Oliver North delivering testimony in a Marine uniform. North, who was a central figure in the plan to secretly ship arms to Iran despite a U.S. trade and arms embargo, and who as a National Security Council aide directed efforts to raise private and foreign funds for the contras despite a Congressional prohibition on U.S. government agencies’ providing military aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, testified before Congress under a grant of limited immunity in July 1987.
Although North had been granted limited immunity for his testimony, he was later convicted of criminal charges related to Iran-Contra activities (a conviction that was eventually overturned on the grounds that witnesses had been influenced by his immunized testimony). One of the charges against North was that he had received a $16,000 home security system paid for out of the proceeds of the Iran-Contra affair and had forged documents to cover his receipt of an illegal gratuity. North admitted that he knew the security system was a “gift” but maintained he never inquired about who had paid for it or how it was financed, and he was insistent that he needed the security system because the government had failed to provide adequate protection against international terrorists for him and his family.
The terrorist North mentioned in his testimony was not Osama bin Laden, however. To the extent that bin Laden was known to the western world in 1987, it was not as a “terrorist” but as one of the U.S.-backed “freedom fighters” participating in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden’s hatred of the U.S. and conversion to “terrorist” status is not believed to have come about until the Gulf War of 1990-91, when he was outspokenly critical of Saudi Arabian dependence upon the U.S. military and denounced U.S. support of a “corrupt, materialist, and irreligious” Saudi monarchy. (The Saudi Arabian government stripped bin Laden of his citizenship in 1994 for his funding of militant fundamentalist Islamic groups.)
Oliver North did not testify about or mention the name Osama bin Laden during the Iran-Contra hearings. He claimed that threats against his life had been made by terrorist Abu Nidal, telling a congressional committee:
Abu Nidal is, as I am sure you on the Intelligence Committee know, the principal, foremost assassin in the world today. He is a brutal murderer. And I would like to just, if I may, just read to you a little bit about Mr. Abu Nidal …
“Abu Nidal, the radical Palestinian guerrilla leader, linked to last Friday’s attacks in Rome and Vienna” — that was the so-called Christmas massacre in which 19 people died and 200 were wounded — “is the world’s most wanted terrorist.” That is the Christian Science Monitor.
When you look at his whole career, Abu Nidal makes the infamous terrorist Carlos [the Jackal] look like a Boy Scout.
Abu Nidal himself, quoted in Der Spiegel, “Between America and us, there exists a war to the death. In the coming months and years, Americans will be thinking about us.”
“For sheer viciousness, Abu Nidal has few rivals in the underworld of terrorism.” Newseek.
