Interviews - Robert Baer | Terror And Tehran | FRONTLINE | PBS
Robert Baer was a CIA case officer in the Directorate of Operations from 1976 to 1997, where he served in Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq and Lebanon. He is the author of See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism (Crown Publishers, 2002). Here, Baer says that there is evidence linking Iran to attacks on American interests, including the Khobar Towers bombing in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that killed 19 U.S. soldiers in 1996. He says that Iran has been mishandled by U.S. diplomats since the 1980s and that American foreign policy regarding the Islamic Republic is based on myths and misinformation. Baer was interviewed by FRONTLINE producer Neil Docherty on March 22, 2002.
... Maybe you could paint me a political picture of Lebanon in the 1980s, when you first got there. What was happening?
When I first went to Lebanon, it was in December 1982. A seminal event had occurred about six months before I got there, and that was the kidnapping of three Iranian diplomats, the charge d'affaires, and a Lebanese translator. They were murdered and they were buried in a Lebanese forces parking lot -- that's the Christian Lebanese forces -- in a part of Beirut. What we didn't realize as Americans, because we didn't understand Iran, is we were going to get blamed for that kidnapping.
The way it went down is the Iranians assumed, since the Lebanese Christian forces were our allies and the allies of Israel, that we had to be responsible for those kidnappings and the murders later. ... Even though we knew nothing about it -- the CIA didn't know about it, American government didn't know about it, we ourselves were asking what happened to these people -- for the Iranians, it was a key event which for them broke the contract.
So they started kidnapping, and shortly after that they kidnapped David Dodge, the acting president of the American University of Beirut and took him to Tehran. They got caught. We found out about it. We went to the Syrians; the Syrians forced his release. After [Dodge] was released, the Iranians then arranged to use surrogates in order to have plausible denial. ... They used the Hezbollah, a group in Hezbollah, to kidnap hostages.
Why do you think the Iranians were taken and killed?
Maybe it was for robbery. We don't know. We're not sure. ...
How, at that time, are the Iranians looking at the world?
First of all, you've got to look at the 6 June invasion of Lebanon. The Israelis came across the border because of an Abu Nidal assassination attempt in London. For the Iranians, it looked as a pretext for Israel to attack an Islamic country, and they looked at Lebanon as an Islamic country, or a country that should be an Islamic country. So they looked at this as Israeli aggression, but backed by the United States. They simply do not believe that Israel invaded Lebanon without a green light from Washington. I don't know about a green light. Maybe there was, maybe there wasn't. But the point is, the Iranians held us responsible.
... [Then the kidnapping of] these three Iranian diplomats. Not only did they kidnap three Iranian diplomats, but the charge d'affaires ... is very close to [then-President] Rafsanjani. They're almost related. ... He takes it personally. The Iranian government holds the Lebanese forces and the United States responsible.
So you have these two events. And Iran says, "All right, we're at war. Undeclared war, but nonetheless we're at war." Their objective at that point is to drive the Americans out of Lebanon.
The first embassy bombing [in April 1983] I think they were involved in; the Marine [barracks] bombing in October 1983; September 1984, the second embassy bombing. And you know what? The Americans [then] leave. This is a successful policy for them [the bombers]. And what comes in place [after that]? Hezbollah is found in 1985. It's an alternative to the Lebanese government; it's an Islamic party. It mirrors the government in Tehran. ... And then you add on to this that Hezbollah drives Israel out of Lebanon, the first victory against the Israelis ever.
So what we have today, if you want to expand this analysis, [is] Hamas, the Islamic Jihad in Palestine and Gaza carrying out war successfully against Sharon. And the Iranians back in Tehran say, "We're winning. This is the way you fight a war. This is how you defeat F-16s, this is how you defeat aircraft carriers. We beat the United States, we beat the Israelis in Lebanon, and we're going to beat 'em in Palestine."
This is a strong message. I don't care how secular Iran becomes. They still look at the United States, Britain, and France as colonizing powers, and this is the final war ending colonization in the Middle East, using Islam. So for the Iranians, it's very, very logical. We as Americans say, "Well, it's not. We were peacekeepers in Lebanon." They don't look at it that way. Or as Americans, we say, "You can't kidnap innocent people, journalists, priests, people like that. It's wrong." They look at it differently. It's a war of civilizations for them. And it was very successful, frankly, and cheap.
Right. And what about Iranian fingerprints on Hezbollah? What is the evidence that Iran influenced Hezbollah?
Well, we know they influenced Hezbollah because they accept Khomeini and Khamenei as the spiritual leader of Hezbollah, [not Sheik] Fadlallah. Fadlallah is the senior cleric in Lebanon, but he was not the main impetus of Hezbollah. It was Iran. I mean, it's acknowledged; it's public that the religious authority is found in Qom in Iran, and the Iranian clerics. It's a very hierarchical religion.
The fingerprints on Iran in terrorism? There are a few of them. The Marines [bombing of the Marine barracks in October 1983], kidnapping of Charlie Glass, the American journalist, the death of Bill Buckley [the CIA station chief who was kidnapped in March 1984] , the fact that Dodge, the American University of Beirut acting president, was held in Iran in a prison, kidnapped by the Pasdaran [Iran's Revolutionary Guards].
The evidence is there. The fact that Father [Martin] Jenco saw Iranians deliver food to the place he was held in the Bekaa Valley, that was in 1984, I think. The evidence is just there. I mean, it's incontrovertible when you have a hostage seeing the people, you're watching this stuff by satellite, and you've got this intelligence information. And I think the only people that would deny this are people who haven't really followed the issue, or just made up their minds otherwise.
Or Iran itself -- it certainly claims it doesn't [and] won't sponsor terrorism.
The fact is, in 1984 and 1985, they were in control of the Sheik Abdullah Barracks in Baalbek. I saw with my own eyes, journalists saw with their own eyes, that the Pasdaran was guarding the places where the hostages were held. When [Jerry] Levin escaped, he escaped out of one of the buildings at the Sheik Abdullah barracks. They saw the Iranians deliver the food. It's just denying reality. The Iranians can't say, "We didn't know anything about it." It's crazy.
Fast-forwarding to today, what's your impression or your knowledge about their support for Islamic Jihad?
Early in the 1990s, they supported it. They provided training, weapons in the Bekaa Valley, supported morally. They've stated publicly they support these guys, the Qods force, which is part of the Pasdaran.
What they're doing today, I don't know. The Israelis claim that an agreement was made between Arafat and the Pasdaran in Moscow six months ago. I don't know. ... I don't trust the Israelis. They're in the middle of this fight. I no longer do intelligence. I have no way to measure the facts from propaganda. I think the Israelis would know. But are they going to tell us the truth? Who knows?
What about Buckley? Can you expand a little on what happened -- why he was taken, and what happened to him?
Buckley, the Iranians knew who he was. When he would go to the airport at Beirut International Airport and send visitors to the United States with intelligence connections, it was very clear. He lived in one apartment, always wore a suit, always meticulously dressed, always left at the same time. For the Iranians or their surrogates, the token surrogates who took him, he was a very attractive target.
You could get the ambassador; it would be great for the Iranians, but he was too hard to get. He had protection and an armored car. Buckley didn't. He was held for a while in Beirut and taken to the Sheik Abdullah Barracks where he was held. The winter of, I believe it was 1984-1985, he caught pneumonia. He'd been really roughed up, beaten up, tortured during interrogation. Combination of pneumonia and torture; his whole system collapsed, and he died in captivity.
Doesn't do much for Iran-American relations, does it?
No. Well, I mean, the Iranians have their case of the shah, the overthrow of [nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad] Mossadeq, the corruption of American companies and bribing people in Iran, our feting the shah, overlooking human rights violations. It was during the Cold War. And the Iranians say, "Well, so what if it was during the Cold War? You supported the dictator, you kept him in power." Washington's argument's going to be, "Well, we didn't keep him power. He was the Shah of Iran. He was there before we ever got involved. Iranians kept him in power because they tolerated his behavior."
Robert Baer was a CIA case officer in the Directorate of Operations from 1976 to 1997, where he served in Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq and Lebanon. He is the author of See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism (Crown Publishers, 2002). Here, Baer says that there is evidence linking Iran to attacks on American interests, including the Khobar Towers bombing in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that killed 19 U.S. soldiers in 1996. He says that Iran has been mishandled by U.S. diplomats since the 1980s and that American foreign policy regarding the Islamic Republic is based on myths and misinformation. Baer was interviewed by FRONTLINE producer Neil Docherty on March 22, 2002.
... Maybe you could paint me a political picture of Lebanon in the 1980s, when you first got there. What was happening?
When I first went to Lebanon, it was in December 1982. A seminal event had occurred about six months before I got there, and that was the kidnapping of three Iranian diplomats, the charge d'affaires, and a Lebanese translator. They were murdered and they were buried in a Lebanese forces parking lot -- that's the Christian Lebanese forces -- in a part of Beirut. What we didn't realize as Americans, because we didn't understand Iran, is we were going to get blamed for that kidnapping.
The way it went down is the Iranians assumed, since the Lebanese Christian forces were our allies and the allies of Israel, that we had to be responsible for those kidnappings and the murders later. ... Even though we knew nothing about it -- the CIA didn't know about it, American government didn't know about it, we ourselves were asking what happened to these people -- for the Iranians, it was a key event which for them broke the contract.
So they started kidnapping, and shortly after that they kidnapped David Dodge, the acting president of the American University of Beirut and took him to Tehran. They got caught. We found out about it. We went to the Syrians; the Syrians forced his release. After [Dodge] was released, the Iranians then arranged to use surrogates in order to have plausible denial. ... They used the Hezbollah, a group in Hezbollah, to kidnap hostages.
Why do you think the Iranians were taken and killed?
Maybe it was for robbery. We don't know. We're not sure. ...
How, at that time, are the Iranians looking at the world?
First of all, you've got to look at the 6 June invasion of Lebanon. The Israelis came across the border because of an Abu Nidal assassination attempt in London. For the Iranians, it looked as a pretext for Israel to attack an Islamic country, and they looked at Lebanon as an Islamic country, or a country that should be an Islamic country. So they looked at this as Israeli aggression, but backed by the United States. They simply do not believe that Israel invaded Lebanon without a green light from Washington. I don't know about a green light. Maybe there was, maybe there wasn't. But the point is, the Iranians held us responsible.
... [Then the kidnapping of] these three Iranian diplomats. Not only did they kidnap three Iranian diplomats, but the charge d'affaires ... is very close to [then-President] Rafsanjani. They're almost related. ... He takes it personally. The Iranian government holds the Lebanese forces and the United States responsible.
So you have these two events. And Iran says, "All right, we're at war. Undeclared war, but nonetheless we're at war." Their objective at that point is to drive the Americans out of Lebanon.
The first embassy bombing [in April 1983] I think they were involved in; the Marine [barracks] bombing in October 1983; September 1984, the second embassy bombing. And you know what? The Americans [then] leave. This is a successful policy for them [the bombers]. And what comes in place [after that]? Hezbollah is found in 1985. It's an alternative to the Lebanese government; it's an Islamic party. It mirrors the government in Tehran. ... And then you add on to this that Hezbollah drives Israel out of Lebanon, the first victory against the Israelis ever.
So what we have today, if you want to expand this analysis, [is] Hamas, the Islamic Jihad in Palestine and Gaza carrying out war successfully against Sharon. And the Iranians back in Tehran say, "We're winning. This is the way you fight a war. This is how you defeat F-16s, this is how you defeat aircraft carriers. We beat the United States, we beat the Israelis in Lebanon, and we're going to beat 'em in Palestine."
This is a strong message. I don't care how secular Iran becomes. They still look at the United States, Britain, and France as colonizing powers, and this is the final war ending colonization in the Middle East, using Islam. So for the Iranians, it's very, very logical. We as Americans say, "Well, it's not. We were peacekeepers in Lebanon." They don't look at it that way. Or as Americans, we say, "You can't kidnap innocent people, journalists, priests, people like that. It's wrong." They look at it differently. It's a war of civilizations for them. And it was very successful, frankly, and cheap.
Right. And what about Iranian fingerprints on Hezbollah? What is the evidence that Iran influenced Hezbollah?
Well, we know they influenced Hezbollah because they accept Khomeini and Khamenei as the spiritual leader of Hezbollah, [not Sheik] Fadlallah. Fadlallah is the senior cleric in Lebanon, but he was not the main impetus of Hezbollah. It was Iran. I mean, it's acknowledged; it's public that the religious authority is found in Qom in Iran, and the Iranian clerics. It's a very hierarchical religion.
The fingerprints on Iran in terrorism? There are a few of them. The Marines [bombing of the Marine barracks in October 1983], kidnapping of Charlie Glass, the American journalist, the death of Bill Buckley [the CIA station chief who was kidnapped in March 1984] , the fact that Dodge, the American University of Beirut acting president, was held in Iran in a prison, kidnapped by the Pasdaran [Iran's Revolutionary Guards].
The evidence is there. The fact that Father [Martin] Jenco saw Iranians deliver food to the place he was held in the Bekaa Valley, that was in 1984, I think. The evidence is just there. I mean, it's incontrovertible when you have a hostage seeing the people, you're watching this stuff by satellite, and you've got this intelligence information. And I think the only people that would deny this are people who haven't really followed the issue, or just made up their minds otherwise.
Or Iran itself -- it certainly claims it doesn't [and] won't sponsor terrorism.
The fact is, in 1984 and 1985, they were in control of the Sheik Abdullah Barracks in Baalbek. I saw with my own eyes, journalists saw with their own eyes, that the Pasdaran was guarding the places where the hostages were held. When [Jerry] Levin escaped, he escaped out of one of the buildings at the Sheik Abdullah barracks. They saw the Iranians deliver the food. It's just denying reality. The Iranians can't say, "We didn't know anything about it." It's crazy.
Fast-forwarding to today, what's your impression or your knowledge about their support for Islamic Jihad?
Early in the 1990s, they supported it. They provided training, weapons in the Bekaa Valley, supported morally. They've stated publicly they support these guys, the Qods force, which is part of the Pasdaran.
What they're doing today, I don't know. The Israelis claim that an agreement was made between Arafat and the Pasdaran in Moscow six months ago. I don't know. ... I don't trust the Israelis. They're in the middle of this fight. I no longer do intelligence. I have no way to measure the facts from propaganda. I think the Israelis would know. But are they going to tell us the truth? Who knows?
What about Buckley? Can you expand a little on what happened -- why he was taken, and what happened to him?
Buckley, the Iranians knew who he was. When he would go to the airport at Beirut International Airport and send visitors to the United States with intelligence connections, it was very clear. He lived in one apartment, always wore a suit, always meticulously dressed, always left at the same time. For the Iranians or their surrogates, the token surrogates who took him, he was a very attractive target.
You could get the ambassador; it would be great for the Iranians, but he was too hard to get. He had protection and an armored car. Buckley didn't. He was held for a while in Beirut and taken to the Sheik Abdullah Barracks where he was held. The winter of, I believe it was 1984-1985, he caught pneumonia. He'd been really roughed up, beaten up, tortured during interrogation. Combination of pneumonia and torture; his whole system collapsed, and he died in captivity.
Doesn't do much for Iran-American relations, does it?
No. Well, I mean, the Iranians have their case of the shah, the overthrow of [nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad] Mossadeq, the corruption of American companies and bribing people in Iran, our feting the shah, overlooking human rights violations. It was during the Cold War. And the Iranians say, "Well, so what if it was during the Cold War? You supported the dictator, you kept him in power." Washington's argument's going to be, "Well, we didn't keep him power. He was the Shah of Iran. He was there before we ever got involved. Iranians kept him in power because they tolerated his behavior."
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