Talk:Kerry Committee

deletion
Re the addition of the anon, I removed the additions :

''Meanwhile, Kerry's staff began their own investigations, and on October 14, 1986 issued a report which exposed illegal activities on the part of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, who had set up a private network involving, amongst many others, the National Security Council, USAID, and the CIA to deliver military equipment to right-wing Nicaraguan rebels (Contras). '' Could you please verify where you got this information? Thank you. Travb (talk) 13:55, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

work
this article needs more work, its important. ΤΕΡΡΑΣΙΔΙΩΣ (Ταλκ ) 03:05, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
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Fix lead
The second sentence of the article's lead originally stated: The report found the United States Department of State had paid drug traffickers. Some of these payments were after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges or while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies. This is misleading, to put it mildly, and I've deleted it. The actual claim that the committee made was that there were "Payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies." This statement appears later in the article, where it should. The Committee was accusing the State Department of failing to vet the firms who were chosen to fly hazardous routes to provide aid to refugees of the Nicaraguan conflict. It was not accusing the State Department of paying drug traffickers to ship drugs. Rgr09 (talk) 05:10, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Not getting it, what's the difference? Your long quoted sentence still is (just with the emphasis placed somewhat differently): "Payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies." So it seems the actual claim was that the Committee was accusing the State Department of paying drug traffickers to ship drugs. --CRConrad (talk) 14:01, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The Report here is saying that the persons hired by the State Department to deliver humanitarian assistance to the Contras were in some cases under indictment or under investigation for drug trafficking. The implication, not very clearly stated, was that it was inappropriate to award a government contract to persons under criminal indictment or investigation. Beyond this, in an even more attenuated form, I believe that the Report was also implying that such persons might make use of delivering humanitarian supplies as a cover for their illegal trafficking. Nowhere in the report does the Committee claim that the State Department was paying drug traffickers to engage in drug trafficking.  Nowhere does the Committee even imply this. Rgr09 (talk) 17:06, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Serious problem
This article confounds two different reports. The first was a report which Kerry released in 1986. This had to do with the Iran-Contra scandal. The second is a report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and Foreign Operations, which Kerry chaired. This report was the one released on April 13, 1989. The two reports were done at separate times, involved separated people and had separate consequences. This article is mainly linked to by articles that reference the 1989 report. For the 1986 report, I will check to make sure the references to it are consistent with the information in the main Iran-Contra article and then delete that material out. Yet another error-riddled article that has sat almost untouched for 9 years. Rgr09 (talk) 05:30, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Kerry Committee report. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110605023547/http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010716/dcorn/single to http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010716/dcorn/single

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 00:19, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Corn on Kerry Report
The David Corn article cited in the article is not available on line. It was used to support the claim that the CIA Inspector-General's report confirmed the conclusions of the Kerry Committee Report, but this is problematical. Both the IG report and the Committee report were very lengthy and covered many topics, most of them quite different. For instance, at least half of the IG report was devoted to the claims of Gary Webb's Dark Alliance series, which was not in the KC report at all. What part of the KC report did Corn think the IG report confirmed? This claim has been up for over 10 years with nothing more to support it than this one note. I'm deleting the claim for now. Anyone following up on this please give more substantial sources. Rgr09 (talk) 21:26, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

For future referece
UPI report: "White House blocks GAO probe of Noriega" by Brian Barger. The Kerry report refers to this on pp. 79-80 in its discussion of Noriega. -Location (talk) 22:44, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

citation problems
The article originally contained the following cites:
 * The US State Department paid over $806,000 to known drug traffickers to carry humanitarian assistance to the Contras. In addition, the report indicated that various U.S. government agencies and officials were aware of Contras involvement in drug trafficking either while the behaviors were occurring or directly afterwards.

Both of these citations are problematic.

First, Cockburn & St. James: As a check with the original shows, the Committee's report did not claim that $806,000 was paid to "known drug traffickers"; this claim appears nowhere in the report. The actual claim about who was receiving funds is already cited in the article. The report here is long winded and indirect. The issue here is whether the State Department knew, or should have known, that some of the firms hired to deliver humanitarian aid to the Contras were either under investigation for drug smuggling or had actually been indicted for drug smuggling. This is quite different from affirming that these firms were previously known to smuggle drugs before the contracts to deliver aid had ever been signed.

Second, the Deveraux article has a long direct quote from the KC which was paraphrased in text as follows: "U.S. government agencies and officials were aware of Contra involvement in drug trafficking either while the behaviors were occurring or directly afterwards." This is not what the report said, though again the Report's phrasing is long winded and indirect. In fact, the report found that the Contras, as organizations, were NOT involved in drug smuggling. Who was involved? 1) "individuals who provided support for the Contras" (these are not Contras); 2) the supply network of the Contras was used by drug trafficking organizations (this does not say the Contras themselves were drug trafficking organizations!); 3) elements of the Contras themselves (these are individual, corrupt Contras. The report specifically acknowledges that Contra leaders were not among these individuals). The paraphrase is inconsistent with what the report actually says. I have therefore deleted this cite. Rgr09 (talk) 13:29, 19 May 2020 (UTC)