This was the first known official contact of the Israeli Nir with the U.S. government in
the Iran-Contra affair. In the future, Nir would serve as the main Israeli agent in the
covert arms-for- hostages negotiations with Iran, alongside such other well-known U.S.
participants as Oliver North and Robert McFarlane. The Terrorism Task Force
organization, as we shall see, was a permanent affair.@s2@s7
August 8, 1985:George Bush met with the National Security Planning Group in the residence section of
the White House. Spurring on their deliberations on the terrorism problem, a car bomb
had blown up that day at a U.S. air base in Germany, with 22 American casualties.
The officials discussed shipment of U.S.-made arms to Iran through Israel--to replenish
Israeli stocks of TOW missiles and to permit Israel to sell arms to Iran.
According to testimony by Robert McFarlane, the transfer was supported by George
Bush, Casey and Donald Regan, and opposed by Shultz and Weinberger.@s2@s8
August 18, 1985:Luis Posada Carriles escaped from prison in Venezuela, where he was being held for the
terrorist murder of 73 persons. Using forged documents falsely identifying him as a
Venezuelan named Ramon Medina, '' Posada flew to Central America. Within a few weeks, Felix Rodriguez assigned him to supervise the Bush office's Contra resupply operations being run from the El Salvador air base. Posada personally ran the safe-houses used for the CIA flight crews. Rodriguez explained the arrangement in his book:
Because of my relationship with [El Salvador Air Force] Gen. Bustillo, I was able to pave
the way for [the operations attributed to Oliver] North to use the facilities at Ilopango [El
Salvador air force base].... I found someone to manage the Salvadorian-based resupply
operation on a day-to-day basis. They knew that person as Ramon Medina. I knew him
by his real name: Luis Posada Carriles.... I first [sic!] met Posada in 1963 at Fort
Benning, Georgia, where we went through basic training together ... as U.S. Army second
lieutenants.... '' Rodriguez neglects to explain that agent Posada Carilles was originally
recruited and trained by the same CIA murder operation, JM/WAVE '' in Miami, as was Rodriguez himself. Felix continues: In the sixties, he reportedly went to work for
DISIP, the Venezuelan intelligence service, and rose to considerable power within its
ranks. It was rumored that he held one of the top half- dozen jobs in the organization....
After the midair bombing of a Cubana airliner on October 6, 1976, in which seventy-
three people were killed, Posada was charged with planning the attack and was thrown in
prison.... Posada was confined in prison for more than nine years.... ''@s2@s9
September 10, 1985:George Bush's national security adviser, Donald Gregg, met at 4:30 P.M. with Oliver
North and Col. James Steele, the U.S. military official in El Salvador who oversaw flights
of cargo going to the Contras from various points in Central America. They discussed