Gates Advocated Air Strikes on Nicaragua (WaPo)

[kpete]

Gates Advocated Air Strikes on Nicaragua

By GEORGE GEDDA
The Associated Press
Friday, November 24, 2006; 4:54 PM

WASHINGTON -- In 1984, Robert Gates, then the No. 2 CIA official, advocated U.S. airstrikes against Nicaragua's pro-Cuban government to reverse what he described as an ineffective U.S. strategy to deal with communist advances in Central America, previously classified documents say.

Gates, President Bush's nominee to be defense secretary, said the United States could no longer justify what he described as "halfhearted" attempts to contain Nicaragua's Sandinista government, according to documents released Friday by the National Security Archive, a private research group.

In a memo to CIA Director William Casey dated Dec. 14, 1984, Gates said his proposed airstrikes would be designed "to destroy a considerable portion of Nicaragua's military buildup" and be focused on tanks and helicopters.

He also recommended that the United States prevent delivery to the Sandinistas of such weapons in the future. The administration, he said, should make clear that a U.S. invasion of the country was not contemplated.

more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112400872.html

[JDPriestly]

1. Is Bush shifting the focus of his paranoia to South America?

Is the appointment of Gates actually an indication that the Bush administration plans to shift the battlefront to South and Central America? After all, Gates did such a great job there before? Wasn't he part of the team that ousted Ortega?

[acmavm]

2. Nah, I think they're crazy and paranoid enough to take on

everybody.

[roody]

3. They starved the people through an economic embargo

until they voted Ortega out in desperation. Meanwhile having the Contras murder and destroy.