U.S. Arms to Iran Put at $1 Billion
An Athens newspaper reported Saturday that the United States shipped more than $1 billion worth of military equipment to Iran, or about 100 times the amount U.S. officials have admitted was sent.
The daily Dimokratikos Logos also said that $2 million of the money paid for the arms by Iranian authorities was sent to the Islamic Jihad group holding Americans hostage in Lebanon.
The paper has close ties with Premier Andreas Papandreou’s Socialist government. However the paper has not previously broken a story of major international significance, so it was difficult to gauge the reliability of the report.
The article was based on what it said were tapes of U.S. envoy Robert C. McFarlane’s talks with Iranians in Tehran.
Omiros Emmanouilidis, who wrote the story, told reporters that the contents of the tapes were given to him by reliable sources. He declined to say if he heard the actual tapes or read transcripts.
The newspaper said the tapes show that the United States supplied Iran with military equipment worth as much as $1.3 billion. It said the tapes show that Washington had agreed to supply Iran with equipment worth $5 billion.
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