Covert or Overt? Congress Disputes President on Aid

It was 1 a.m. and a small group of lawmakers was huddled around a conference table in the U.S. Capitol finishing work on the Foreign Assistance Act of 1985. After days of negotiations between House and Senate members, only one issue was still unresolved: Which agency would administer a $27-million aid package for the Nicaraguan rebels?

Rep. Dante B. Fascell (D-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, refused to permit the aid for the rebels, known as contras, to be funneled through the Pentagon or the CIA, fearing that those agencies would violate a prohibition against spending the money on weapons.

And so the lawmakers created a new office at the State Department--the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Agency. It turned out to be a futile effort. One year later the office was abolished. House Democrats found that some funds had been misappropriated and concluded that the agency was unprepared to effectively supply large sums of money to a ragged band of guerrillas in the jungles of Central America.

The short, unhappy life of the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Agency is an outgrowth of the deep distrust that many in Congress have for the Reagan Doctrine--President Reagan’s controversial pledge to resist Soviet expansion around the globe by providing assistance to Third World anti-Communist rebels.

With hundreds of millions of dollars now flowing to such insurgents in Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Angola and Cambodia, Congress finds itself battling the Administration over the direction of virtually every aspect of the program.

Reagan’s critics on Capitol Hill charge that the Administration has chosen to funnel the aid covertly to shield the program from public scrutiny and a potential congressional veto. In addition, they maintain that the President is violating the Constitution by waging proxy wars without seeking declarations of war from Congress.

“Congress has a constitutional role in foreign policy-making to declare war, to provide for the defense of the United States,” said Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.) added: “There may be constitutionally no way we can do it. You either declare war or you do not declare war.”

But Administration officials contend that Congress has overstepped its bounds by trying to usurp the President’s prerogatives in foreign policy-making. Opponents who have failed to kill the policy are now trying to manage every last detail of U.S. assistance programs for the anti-Communist resistance groups, they charge.

Indeed, Congress has spent endless hours trying to do just that--to decide what kind of weapons, if any, the rebels will receive from the United States; whether U.S. corporations should continue to do business with the Marxist governments that U.S.-backed forces are trying to oust, and which agency should run the aid programs.

Congress has become so deeply involved, in fact, that it is no longer unusual for the lawmakers themselves to visit the war zones to gather information designed to either discredit or defend the President’s policy. Rep. Charles Wilson (D-Tex.), for one, has become closely identified with the Afghan resistance by risking his life to travel with the rebels across the Pakistani border into Afghanistan.

The most frequently disputed question between Congress and the President is whether the rebel aid should be covert or overt--a distinction that has been blurred by Reagan’s habit of publicly defending programs that are technically secret. As Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R-Kan.) puts it: “Covert has become overt.”

An example of Kassebaum’s succinct comment is the $100 million in military and humanitarian aid that the contras are expecting to start receiving this fall. No other aid program this year has been as controversial or as hotly debated on Capitol Hill. It has even been satirized in the national syndicated comic strip Doonesbury in recent weeks. Yet, technically speaking, at least $70 million of that is covert aid.

By the government’s definition, a covert program is one operated secretly by the CIA or another intelligence agency with congressional oversight, but without any express vote of endorsement by Congress other than general budget approval. Overt foreign assistance programs are run openly by the State Department, and Congress budgets them line by line.

Other Resistance Groups

In addition to the Nicaraguan contras, the three other Third World resistance groups chosen for support by Reagan technically have been receiving assistance covertly, despite the President’s public statements.

The rebels in Nicaragua, Afghanistan and Cambodia are also budgeted to receive smaller amounts of overt aid for “humanitarian” purposes through normal State Department channels.

The President’s advisers have insisted that the aid be delivered covertly because, in the cases of Nicaragua and Afghanistan, the United States is funding rebel groups that seek to overthrow governments with which America still maintains diplomatic relations. And, in Angola, where America has no embassy, the Luanda government still has strong ties with U.S. companies.

“If the United States President goes on television and Congress says we’re going to send ‘X’ somewhere, that is clearly perceived as an act of war,” explained Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “With covert activity, it may be that no one knows precisely where everything showed up or who were contributors or conspirators to the affair, and the nation in question may decide to overlook it. But signals are sent of our displeasure.”

In addition, Administration officials note that the covert method is preferred by leaders of the governments in neighboring countries--Pakistan, Honduras, Zaire and Thailand--who are helping the United States to deliver the aid to the rebel groups. This so-called “deniability” helps to keep these third countries from being drawn into conflicts themselves.

Although the President under law must keep the House and Senate intelligence committees informed of all covert programs, he has no obligation to seek congressional approval of covert activity.

Reagan’s critics denounce the arrangement.

President’s Power

“Theoretically, it would be possible for the President to involve the United States in a war with not one single member of Congress approving it,” Hamilton said.

He argues that, when the President decided earlier this year to provide $15 million in aid to Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, the decision represented a dramatic shift in U.S. policy that should have been debated by Congress.

“This is a major foreign policy decision,” Hamilton said. “It aligns you with South Africa. It aligns you against most of black Africa. Just ask yourself: Should a major foreign policy decision be made without the approval of the Congress? My answer is ‘no.’ ”

This month, the House is expected to vote on a proposal by Hamilton that would require the Administration to convert the aid to Savimbi to an overt program. Although Congress voted last year to lift a decade-old ban on assistance for the Angolan resistance fighters, it has never voted affirmatively for such aid.

Congress wrested control of the contra aid program away from the CIA two years ago and halted all assistance except so-called “humanitarian” aid after learning that agency operatives had helped to mine a Nicaraguan harbor. However, after the disastrous performance of the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Agency in administering contra aid, the House and Senate recently voted to allow the military program to resume under CIA management Oct. 1.

Hamilton and Durenberger, whose jobs as intelligence committee chairmen require them to oversee CIA activities, argue that the agency was never intended to direct regional wars.

Reagan loyalists on the intelligence committees strongly disagree. “What the hell do we have the CIA for if not for covert activity?” Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) asked.

But Hamilton contends that “running covert paramilitary actions is not the business of the CIA. It has nothing to do with intelligence. Where does it belong? . . . I guess the answer is put it over in the Defense Department.”

Hamilton also complains that his committee does not have sufficient manpower to audit the payment of U.S. funds by the CIA to the contras, as Congress has mandated. Overt programs are routinely audited by the General Accounting Office, a watchdog arm of Congress, but CIA expenditures are exempt from GAO scrutiny.

Durenberger fears that the CIA’s involvement in undeclared wars is “the cancer” that will make oversight of U.S. intelligence programs an impossible task.

In Central America, congressional investigators found recently that at least $1.5 million of the money given to contra leaders through the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Agency wound up instead in the pockets of Honduran officials. And various sources estimate that anywhere from 15% to 70% of the assistance to Afghan rebels is being diverted by Pakistani officials--a charge hotly denied by rebel sympathizers such as Rep. Wilson.

Supporters of the policy contend that Congress is setting too high a standard for financial transactions with rebel groups. “There’s always going to be waste and corruption,” a top Senate aide said. “You are not going to get a Dun & Bradstreet report on your intermediaries.”

To make matters worse, Administration sources acknowledged that even though Congress limited contra funding to $100 million next year, the CIA intends to use its newly restored control of the program to spend additional amounts on the Nicaraguan rebels from the agency’s unobligated “contingency” funds. Critics see this as yet another way that Reagan uses covert activity to undermine the expressed will of Congress.

The Reagan Doctrine has created other anomalies in U.S. policy, not the least of which is the nation’s continued diplomatic relationships with two of the governments targeted by U.S.-backed rebels. Officials argue that it serves American interests for the Administration to maintain embassies in Afghanistan and Nicaragua.

But there is growing sentiment in Congress to end the thriving relationship between Chevron Corp. and other U.S. firms with the Marxist government in Angola. Last year, Chevron’s oil production in Angola provided the Luanda government with about $600 million in foreign currency.

The House recently adopted proposals to block the Defense Department from buying oil from firms that produce in Angola and to prohibit Export-Import Bank loans for non-agricultural exports to Angola until it expels an estimated 35,000 Cuban troops.

“Angola is a situation in which we are trading with the enemy,” Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) said.

These efforts to fine-tune the President’s rebel assistance program come a time when outright congressional opposition to the Reagan Doctrine is waning. But, as long as many lawmakers still fear that Reagan could involve the United States in a war without their expressed approval, congressional leaders see little likelihood that the Administration will be given a freer hand in helping anti-Communist rebels in the Third World.