C.I.A. action in Lebanon admitted

Press, 14 May 1985, Page 10

C.I.A. action in Lebanon admitted

NZPA-Reuter Washington

The vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy, has confirmed that the United States set up a covert anti-terrorist programme in Lebanon last year, then withdrew when the plan back-fired, the “Washington Post" reports. Mr Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, said he had launched an independent inquiry into the incident and a half-dozen other operations conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency. The “Post” yesterday quoted informed sources as saying that President Ronald Reagan approved a plan for the C.I.A. to set up and train foreign anti-ter-rorist teams to make preemptive strikes against terrorists planning attacks on United States targets. The plan was hastily scrapped earlier this year, however, when a Lebanese group went on an unauthorised mission, setting off a car bomb in Beirut on March 8 that left more than

80 people dead and some 200 others injured. Under United States law, the Reagan Administration must notify the chairmen and vice-chairmen of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees prior to all covert C.I.A. activities. Mr Leahy said he had not known about the counterterrorism plan in Lebanon until last month when he “found out about it on my own.” “Things have fallen between . the cracks,” Mr Leahy said. “I don’t want my side to get caught on a Nicaraguan-mining type operation.” This was a reference to a covert C.I.A. operation to plant mines in Nicaraguan harbours last year that caused controversy when a Senate committee complained that the C.I.A. director, William Casey, had not told them enough. The Reagan Administration’s only comment was: “We do not undertake any operations which are inconsistent with the law.”