Iran-Contra Hearings Day 1 Part 33: Richard Secord Testimony Part 18 (1987)

May 5, 1987 http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.... Watch the full hearing: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/08/iran-contra-hearings-day-1-richar...

The Raytheon MIM-23 Hawk is a U.S. medium range surface-to-air missile. The Hawk was initially designed to destroy aircraft and was later adapted to destroy other missiles in flight. The missile entered service in 1960, and a program of extensive upgrades has kept it from becoming obsolete. It was superseded by the MIM-104 Patriot in United States Army service by 1994. It was finally phased out of US service in 2002, the last users, the US Marine Corps replacing it with the man-portable infrared-guided visual range FIM-92 Stinger. The missile was also produced outside the US in Western Europe and Japan.

Although the United States never used the Hawk in a combat situation, it has been employed numerous times by foreign nations. Approximately 40,000 of the missiles were produced.

Janes reports that the original systems single shot kill probability was 0.56, I-Hawk improved this to 0.85.

Similar Soviet systems are the SA-3 and SA-6.

The Lebanon hostage crisis refers to the systematic kidnapping in Lebanon of 96 foreign hostages of 21 national origins - mostly American and western European - between 1982 and 1992. At least 8 hostages perished in captivity: some murdered, while others died from lack of adequate medical attention to illnesses.

Those taking responsibility for the kidnapping used different names, but the testimony of former hostages indicates almost all the "groups" were actually one group of "a dozen men" coming "from various ... clans" within the Hezbollah organization, "most notably the Mughniyya and Hamadi clans." Particularly important in the organization was "master terrorist" Imad Mughniyah. Hezbollah has publicly denied involvement. It is also widely believed that the Islamic Republic of Iran - and to a lesser extent Syria - played a major role in the kidnappings, if in fact it was not the instigator of them.

The original reason for the hostage-taking seems to have been "as insurance against retaliation by the U.S., Syria, or any other force" against Hezbollah, which is thought responsible for the killing of 230 Americans in the Marine barracks and embassy bombings in Beirut. Other reasons for the kidnappings or the prolonged holding of hostages are thought to be "primarily based on Iranian foreign policy calculations and interests" particularly the extraction of "political, military and financial concessions from the Western world," the hostage takers being strong allies of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The tight security measures taken by the hostage-keepers succeeded in preventing the rescue of all but a handful of hostages, and this along with public pressure from the media and families of the hostages led to a breakdown of the anti-terrorism principle of "no negotiations, no concessions" by American and French officials. In the United States, the Reagan administration negotiated a secret and illegal arms for hostage swap with Iran known as the Iran-Contra Affair.

The hostage crisis ended with the need for Western aid and investment by Syria and Iran following the end of the Iran-Iraq war and collapse of the Soviet Union, and with promises to Hezbollah that it could remain armed following the end of the Lebanese Civil War and that France and America would not seek revenge against it.

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