Iran Contra Scandals

Many people around know a lot about political scandals but some may not know about the Iran-Contra scandal. Many people did not even find out about the scandal until 1986. It was a scandal that did not come to light until Americans glued themselves to their televisions or read in newspapers that the president that they believed was a good guy had been sadly been sending weapons of mass destruction to Iran.

The Iran Contra is a scandal that eventually erupted after the Reagan administration sold weapons to Iran in high hopes of being able to free American hostages in Lebanon. Since 1981, The United States had sent over a 508 TOW which is an anti-tank to Iran. Shiite had took American victims hostage and the country known as Israel had ultimately

In September, one out of the seven hostages had finally been rescued by the United States. In another attempt to free the rest of the hostages, the United States had 500 surfaces to the air missiles off in Iran to release the other six hostages. In 1985, while Iran and Iraq were at war, Iran had a secret request to buy weapons from the United States. McFarlane needed President Reagan's approval, despite the result of what might happen with Iran. Reagan wanted to go into a different approach then other presidents have ever. He had become frustrated at his inability to secure the release of the seven American hostages being held by Iranian terrorists in Lebanon. For several months, the deal to get the hostages back from Iran was held off because Iranians were dissatisfied with many of the ideas that Americans had come up with. Americans needed someone to help so they brought in Lt. Oliver North. North was a National Security Council staff member during the scandal. North masterminded the

When the Lebanese newspaper "Al-Shiraa" printed an article about the trades and deals that had been going on in November 1986, Reagan then went on television and denied that anything had occurred. He then took back the statement he made a week later, stating that the sale of weapons had not been an arms-for-hostages deal. Besides the fact that Ronald Reagan had tried to say that all of his actions were out of good intentions, his honesty was doubted. Polls showed that only 14 percent of Americans truly believed him when he said that he had nothing bad was going on during the Iran-Contra affair. During the case, a number of criminal convictions had occurred, including those of McFarlane, North, and but were vacated on appeal because of protection agreements with the Senate who were concerned about their testimony. Many of the former State Department and CIA officials had pleaded guilty in 1991 because they were withholding information about the contra aid from Congress. Also, Casper Weinberger, who was the defense secretary for Ronald Reagan, was charged in 1992 for the same withholding valuable information offense. The Reagan Administration had went around Boland Amendment and sent aid which made many believe that Ronald Reagan should be convicted. The contras never even got control of Nicaragua after all of the trouble