Paper Says U.S. Knew Iran Paid for Beirut Blasts

The White House had precise evidence three years ago that Iran paid more than $1 million to arrange for terrorist bombings that killed 258 U.S. servicemen and diplomats in Beirut in 1983, reports published Sunday said.

The eavesdropping network of the National Security Agency intercepted diplomatic messages that enabled it to follow the movement of the funds from the government of Iran to the Iranian Embassy in Lebanon, the Miami Herald said.

A White House spokesman Sunday said he had no information about or comment on the report.

The money was earmarked for the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the Marine compound at Beirut International Airport, according to an intelligence report prepared after the 1983 attacks, an unidentified official familiar with reports based on the intercepts told the Herald.

‘Clear Indication’

“Looking at it (the intercepted messages) after the fact, it was a clear indication the money was going for the attack,” he said. “There was no doubt in our minds.”

Why the NSA did not use the intercepted messages to warn the American diplomats and Marines was not clear. But one official said there were often delays in analyzing intercepted information.

“There is so much stuff coming in all the time that it is not translated and analyzed on a real-time basis,” the unidentified official told the Herald. “There is stuff on the tapes that isn’t analyzed until months later.”

The United States has never publicly disclosed what it determined about the two bombings. But the newspaper said that, as early as 1984, information was available to the Administration detailing Iran’s involvement.