Carrying a little more weight and a little less hair than he did in the eighties, Daniel Ortega reclaimed the presidency of Nicaragua this past week, just as one of his former adversaries was being tapped to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. Neither Ortega's chronic heart ailment nor his moderated, non-confrontational tone kept Nicaraguans from turning to him to lead them once more, after a nearly 20-year interregnum.
According to the Associated Press story covering Ortega's political rebirth, the former Sandinista revolutionary: "Balding, weakened by heart trouble and often appearing almost docile...now preaches reconciliation and stability, and promises to maintain close ties with the U.S. and the veterans of the Contra army it trained and armed against him." The story also says Ortega has renounced his Marxist-based atheism, replacing it with a traditional form of Latin Catholic piety.
Ortega has a tendency to send mixed messages. During his third, failed run for the presidency in 2001 he actually waved an American flag onstage during one of his speeches. Yet only a year and a half ago, celebrating May Day in Cuba, Ortega made a fiery speech in which he referred to Americans as "the enemies of humanity." The Iraq War has obviously not helped the reconciliation process.
He still promotes the most tried and trusted socialist ideals: free education and medical care for all, and welcomes the support of other leftist Latin leaders such as Venezuela's Chavez and the Castros in Cuba. He strongly opposes the U.S. intervention in Iraq, but then so do the majority of U.S. citizens.
But the most striking aspect of Ortega's return to power is his promise to maintain close ties with the U.S., and to reach out to veterans of the Contra army the Reagan administration trained and armed against him.
Like Sr. Ortega, Robert Gates is re-ascending the pinnacle of power after years of relative obscurity. Since retiring from the CIA in 1993, Gates has worked in the sedate ivory towers of academia, first as a lecturer at Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins and Georgetown among others, then as Dean of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M, and since August, 2002 as President of Texas A&M, where he has led a placid and decidedly low-temperature existence along with the secret records the Iran-Contra affair, in which he played a central part. These are housed in the George Herbert Walker Bush Library at A&M, entrusted to Gates's care and held secret in perpetuity by an executive order of George Bush II from November, 2001.
According to Wayne Madsen Reports, Bush II's 2001 order "upended the 1978 Presidential Records Act and permits the Bush Iran-Contra papers to be kept secret...The executive order also affects 60,000 pages of papers from the Reagan Presidential Library that include details of then-Vice President George H. W. Bush's role in Iran-Contra."
Gates will probably be confirmed as Secretary of Defense easily by the Republican-dominated Senate, although he may face some tough questions from Democrats about his role in Iran-Contra, which has now been detailed in an important new book by John Prados, "Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA." Excerpts from the book, along with the full three volumes of Gates's confirmation hearings for CIA director in 1991 are posted on line at the website of the National Security Archive. The hearing records were the most detailed examination of U.S. intelligence practices since the Church and Pike investigations of the 1970s.
As Secretary of Defense, Gates will be multitasking. First, he will probably wind down the Iraq War to an "acceptable" level. The best guess is that "acceptable" means stationing 25-50,000 troops on four or five permanent bases in country, and generally keeping them clear of the street fighting.
Just as importantly, Gates will be operating the shredder full time. Important documents relating to the runup to the war and its subsequent prosecution will either be destroyed or spirited off to the vaults of the Texas A&M library system, to be locked in the deep freeze of information which cannot be revealed because of "national security."
The investigators of the war who are sure to begin work in January will probably not have access to many of the documents they need, and without the necessary documentation they'll get stonewalled by the witnesses they call, just as they were during the investigation of Iran-Contra.
Gates has been down this road before. Although never indicted, he was without doubt one of the key players in the sales of TOW missiles to Iran in the 80's, in exchange for the release of prisoners held in Lebanon by Hizbollah. Money from the missile sales was illegally diverted to the Contra army working to overthrow the elected government of Nicaragua.
Many of the papers relating to that earlier affair were never seen by Judge Lawrence Walsh, due to Gates spiriting them off to the George H.W. Bush Library at A&M, as detailed above.
Gates is a made man in the Bush family mafia. He'll do what he needs to do to protect the capos, past and present. It's what a good Secretary of Defense is supposed to do, and what the outgoing one didn't do.
Like Gates, Ortega is haunted by his past. The Associated Press story covering his re-election noted that "Leaders of the country's Miskito Indians have accused him of genocide for forcing thousands to relocate during the U.S.-backed Contra civil war. He has apologized for moving them, but denies genocide." The Permanent Commission on Human Rights, an independent Nicaraguan organization, has announced it will continue to push the Miskotos' case against Ortega.
In addition Ortega's stepdaughter, Zoilamerica Narvaez, claims he molested her for years, starting when she was 13. She often speaks against him publicly, but Ortega and his wife both deny the accusation. They say Narvaez is mentally unstable.
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