Manucher Ghorbanifar
Manucher Ghorbanifar | |
---|---|
Born | [1] | 9 May 1945
Nationality | Iranian |
Espionage activity | |
Service branch | SAVAK |
Service years | Unknown–1979 |
Operations | NEQAB Iran–Contra affair |
Other work | Arms dealer |
Manucher Ghorbanifar (Persian: منوچهر قربانیفر; nicknamed Gorba, born May 9, 1945) is an expatriate Iranian arms dealer and former SAVAK agent.
According to the
He is best known as a middleman in the
Prior to the Iraq War, Ghorbanifar had passed allegations to the Bush administration that "enriched uranium was smuggled from Iraq into Iran and some may remain hidden in Iraq" which the CIA later discovered to be a fabrication created by Ghorbanifar.[6][7] Ghorbanifar was linked to the Niger uranium forgeries which were forged documents initially released by SISMI that would later be used partly as justification for the Iraq War.[8]
Career
Prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution Ghorbanifar was an agent of Iran's SAVAK intelligence service, and a partner in an Israeli-Iranian shipping company, Starline Iran, which shipped oil from Iran to Israel.[9][10] Ghorbanifar knew Israel's military attache in Tehran, Yaakov Nimrodi, who helped build SAVAK.[11][12]
In 1980 Ghorbanifar was the liaison between the Shah's last Prime Minister,
In 1981 Ghorbanifar was the source for the
In the early 1980s Ghorbanifar accompanied Cyrus Hashemi to Israel to arrange a $50m arms shipment, codenamed "Cosmos", to Iran. The deal was cancelled at the last minute with much of the equipment already loaded onto a ship in Eilat.[17]
Iran–Contra affair
In the 1980s, Ghorbanifar's initial American contacts were
Ghorbanifar's suspected duplicity during the Iran–Contra deal led
His own cohorts in the arms-for-hostages affair were also incredulous. "I knew him to be a liar," North eventually acknowledged.
According to a report in Time, Ghorbanifar's links with the CIA led to internal disputes, with the counter-terrorism division supporting him and Middle East officers attempting to discredit him. Ghorbanifar's anger at being labelled a liar may have led him to urge Iranian contacts to leak the Iran-Contra story.[25][26] The affair first became public in a Lebanese newspaper, apparently leaked by Mehdi Hashemi.
French–Lebanese hostage crisis
Ghorbanifar has been suspected of being a former French
War on terrorism
In December 2001
Summer 2003 news reports of the meetings prompted an internal review, as well as an investigation by the
Manucher Ghorbanifar has emerged as the probable origin of the information cited by
References
- ^ http://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/documents/d-all-31.pdf[bare URL PDF]
- ^ Bahram Alavi (April 1988), "Khomeini's Iran: Israel's Ally", Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, pp. 4–6
- ^ "NORTH ON CASEY'S ROLE".
- ^
- ^ Larisa Alexandrovna, 20 April 2006, Raw Story, Cheney has tapped Iranian expatriate, arms dealer to surveil discussions with Iran, officials say Archived August 7, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 9781135976873.
- ^ "CIA investigated tip on WMD from previously discredited source".
- ^ America's Alleged Intelligence Failure in the Prelude to Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Study of Analytic Factors (PDF)
- ^ Los Angeles Times, 28 December 1986, The Iran Deception : REAGAN'S GREATEST CRISIS : CHAPTER 3 : Enough to Make a Middleman Smile Archived August 14, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ brown.edu, Early Background Report on Manucher Ghorbanifar Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, Declassified document described as Secret, Report, c. September 1, 1981, 1 pp. Archived May 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Jonathan Marshall, Peter Dale Scott, Jane Hunter (1987), The Iran-Contra Connection: Secret Teams and Covert Operations in Reagan Era Archived January 3, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Black Rose Books, p. 178
- Congressional Committees Investigating The Iran-Contra Affair, 1987, p. 527
- ^ Kenneth R. Timmerman (1988), Fanning the Flames: Guns, Greed & Geopolitics in the Gulf War, Chapter 5: Thou Shalt Not Threaten American Interest Archived May 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, The Iran Brief
- ^ Mark J. Gasiorowski (2002), "The Nuzhih Plot and Iranian Politics" Archived March 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, Int. J. Middle East Stud. 34 (2002), 645–666. DOI: 10.1017.S0020743802004038, p652
- ^ a b c d Bryan Brumley, Associated Press, 1 February 1987, Senate Report Calls Iranian Middleman in Arms Sales A 'Suspect Character' Archived March 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Andrew Killgore, The Libyan 'Hit Squad' Hoax, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2000
- ^ Ronen Bergman (2008), The Secret War with Iran: The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle Against the World's Most Dangerous Terrorist Power[permanent dead link], Simon & Schuster, p144
- New York Times, 7 December 2003, How a Shady Iranian Deal Maker Kept the Pentagon's Ear Archived March 6, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 9781451642681.
- ^ Article | The American Prospect Archived April 12, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 9780788126024.
- ^ Peter Earnest (July 9, 2012). "Our Man in the Middle East (Part 2)". www.spymuseum.org (Podcast). International Spy Museum. Event occurs at 11:07-11:58. Retrieved March 13, 2015.
- ^ Pincus, Walter; Lardner Jr., George (September 23, 1991). "GATES'S MEMORY GAPS CONTRAST WITH OTHERS' IRAN-CONTRA RECALL". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 11, 2023.
- ^ President's Special Review Board (February 26, 1987). Report of the President's Special Review Board (PDF). Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. p. B-53.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - ^ Ed Magnuson, Time, 2 February 1987, Double-Dealing Over Iran: CIA squabbling may have led to the arms-for-hostages scandal Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Jonathan Marshall, Peter Dale Scott, Jane Hunter (1987), The Iran-Contra Connection: Secret Teams and Covert Operations in Reagan Era Archived January 3, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Black Rose Books, 223
- Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, February 2002 (in English)
- ^ "Harold Rhode - SourceWatch".
- At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, p. 311–314 (HarperCollins 2007).
External links
- New York Times Book Review36, no. 7, 27 April 1989.
- "Regime Change in Iran? One Man's Secret Plan". Newsweek, 22 December 2002.
- James Risen. How a Shady Iranian Kept the Pentagon's Ear, New York Times, 7 December 2003.
- "Arms dealer in talks with US officials about Iran". Sydney Morning Herald, 9 August 2003.
- Michael Ledeen, "Iran-contra Revisited?". National Review, 14 August 2003.
- Laura Rozen and Jeet Heer, "The Front". The American Prospect, 1 April 2005.
- Washington Post, 9 June 2005: A08.
- Laura Rozen, "Curt Weldon's Deep Throat". The American Prospect, 10 June 2005.
- Larisa Alexandrovna. Spurious attempt to tie Iran, Iraq to nuclear arms plot bypassed U.S. intelligence channels Archived 2006-01-15 at the Wayback Machine, Raw Story, 11 January 2006.
- Larisa Alexandrovna. Ghorbanifar Back on U.S. Payroll Archived 2016-08-07 at the Wayback Machine, Raw Story, 20 April 2006.
- Laura Rozen, Three Days in Rome (Mother Jones magazine)