Subject: Gritz, Secord, Drugs?

From: [email-masked] (Richard Hatch)
Date: 14 Mar 1993 03:12:37 GMT

According to his resume, Gritz served as "Principle Agent, 
NSC, Intelligence Support Activity." _The Iran-Contra Connection: 
Secret Teams and Covert Operations in the Reagan Era_ [by 
Johnathan Marshall, Peter Dale Scott, and Jane Hunter, South End 
Press, 1987] reports that General Richard Secord, a close 
associate of Theodore Shackley, "is said to have participated in 
overseeing the Army's shadowy Intelligence Support Activity." It 
is ironic that Gritz may have been working in a Secord directed 
operation.
 
     Furthermore, Gritz's resume also claims that he "trained 
Afghan Mujahideen Freedom Fighters." The "Mujahideen" were, of 
course, probably the largest CIA covert operation since the 
Vietnam era and received billions of dollars in aid from the 
United States, as well as from Iran-Contra figures such as Prince 
Bandar of Saudi Arabia. One result of the US-backed war against 
the Soviets in Afghanistan was a tremendous increase in opium 
production in South-West Asia, especially Pakistan and 
Afghanistan and a corresponding increase in heroin addiction in 
the region. For example, opium production in Afghanistan 
increased from 400-500 metric tons in 1985 to 700-800 metric tons 
in 1988. One account reports:
 
     An estimated 87 percent of all opium is grown in Nangarhar 
     province and in the Helmand valley, most of which are in the 
     hands of the rebels. Although rebel leaders have repeatedly 
     promised Washington that they would try to crack down on the 
     drug trade, it is an open secret that some rebely commanders 
     have used opium profits to help finance their operations 
     against the Soviet-backed Government of Afghanistan...
     
     [American intelligence analysts] said they have long 
     suspected that planes, trucks, and mules ferrying American 
     military equipment into Afghanistan are also used to ship 
     drugs to Pakistan.
     [The New York Times, 3-6-89]
 
     Sound familiar? Was Gritz paid to train the "Mujahideeen"? 
Or was it just charity? Was it CIA money, the Saudi Iran-Contra 
connection, or the drug money? Will Gritz's supporters call for 
an investigation into Gritz's work with the Intelligence Support 
Activity and the Afghani "Freedom Fighters"?