Paper Says U.S. Soldiers Fired at Nicaraguan Troops

Unknown to Congress, active-duty American soldiers under National Security Council control fired rockets and machine guns at Nicaraguan troops twice in 1984 to protect saboteurs, according to a published report.

Helicopter pilots from an Army commando unit called Intelligence Support Activity flew anti-Sandinista forces inside Nicaragua in 1983 and 1984, the Miami Herald reported in its Sunday editions.

The Herald report, which it said was based on interviews with organizers and participants, indicated that the National Security Council, bypassing normal government channels, controlled the network of secret military units and private contractors, using Lt. Col. Oliver L. North as its chief operative.

Aided Saboteurs’ Retreat

On two occasions in 1984, ISA provided covering fire with rockets and machine guns to protect the saboteurs’ retreat against entrenched Nicaraguan defenders, participants and planners said.

If the story is true, it means that Administration officials were violating the law and lying to Congress about the actions of U.S. troops in Central America, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday.

The involvement of American soldiers “was an absolute violation of the law, unquestionably a violation of the law,” said Leahy, noting that the War Powers Act requires the President to notify and consult with Congress whenever American troops “are being committed to hostilities . . . you can’t have people in combat blazing away and say they’re not involved in hostilities.”

Secondly, the covert actions were “an absolute contradiction to what everybody in the Administration, from the President on down, was telling us at the time, both in public and in private,” Leavy said.

Categorical Assurances

“We (Congress) asked the question every conceivable way, to cover everyone from a consultant with the Department of Agriculture to someone with the CIA . . . and we were given categorical assurances that there weren’t any troops involved.”

Congressional leaders were briefed on some covert ISA operations but were not told of the Nicaraguan attacks, the newspaper said.

Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), then-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, protested to former CIA chief William J. Casey when he found out after the fact.

Meanwhile, the House Intelligence Committee was told that CIA-hired saboteurs and CIA-hired civilian pilots carried out the missions. But participants say that Task Force 160, a new helicopter assault force, actually provided helicopter support, the Herald said.

At the time, the Reagan Administration strenuously denied any U.S. military presence in Nicaragua.

Contras “Took Credit”

But North wrote his boss, then-National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane, in a March 2, 1984, memo that “in accord with prior arrangements,” the U.S.-supported contras “took credit for the operation.”

Describing the procedure used in about half a dozen assaults, the Herald said a Navy commando SEAL (for Sea Air Land) team would be ferried from a U.S. mother ship by Task Force 160 helicopters carrying SEAL boats in underbelly slings.

Light-attack helicopters based on the mother ship were armed with rockets and machine guns to protect the saboteurs.

“You don’t think we would have gone to all that trouble for a bunch of contras, do you?” asked a former pilot who was not named by the Herald.

Former ISA members said they preserved secrecy by training at non-military facilities, wearing civilian clothes and using unmarked equipment bought outside government channels, the paper said.