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Elliott Abrams

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For the American meteorologist, see Elliott Abrams (meteorologist).

Elliot Abrams Elliott Abrams (born January 24, 1948) is an American lawyer who has served in foreign policy positions for a number of Republican U.S. Presidents, most recently George W. Bush.

During Bush's first term in office, he was appointed the post of Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director on the National Security Council for Near East and North African Affairs. At the start of Bush's second term, Abrams was promoted to be his Deputy National Security Advisor, responsible for advancing Bush's strategy of advancing democracy abroad. A leading Straussian neoconservative, Abrams' appointment by Bush was considered highly controversial due to his involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair, over which he subsequently pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of unlawfully withholding information from Congress.

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[edit] Early years

Abrams was born into a Jewish family and received his B.A. from Harvard College, a Master's degree in international relations from the London School of Economics, and his J.D. from Harvard Law School. At Harvard, Abrams considered himself a socialist and was a member of the Young People's Socialist League. He practiced in New York and Washington, DC, and spent four years in the 1970s working for the U.S. Senate as special counsel and then as chief of staff to Senator Daniel Moynihan.

Abrams first came to national prominence when he served as Reagan's Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights in the early 1980s and later as Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs.

[edit] Central America

During this time, Abrams clashed regularly with church groups and human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, over the Reagan administration's foreign policies. They accused him of covering up atrocities committed by the military forces of US-backed governments, such as those in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, and the rebel Contras in Nicaragua.

In early 1982, when reports of the El Mozote massacre of civilians by the military in El Salvador began appearing in U.S. media, Abrams told a Senate committee that the reports of hundreds of deaths at El Mozote "were not credible," and that "it appears to be an incident that is at least being significantly misused, at the very best, by the guerrillas." The massacre had come at a time when the Reagan administration was attempting to bolster the human rights image of the Salvadoran military. Abrams implied that reports of a massacre were simply FMLN propaganda and denounced US investigative reports of the massacre as misleading. He later claimed Washington's policy in El Salvador a "fabulous achievement."

When Congress shut down funding for the Contras with the 1982 Boland Amendment, the Reagan administration began looking for other avenues for funding the group. As part of this strategy, Abrams flew to London using a fake name to solicit a $10 million contribution from the Sultan of Brunei.

In 1993, members of the Salvadoran Truth Commission testified about the El Mozote massacre in a congressional hearing of the House Western Hemisphere subcommittee. Chairman Robert Torricelli, Democratic Senator from New Jersey, vowed to review for possible perjury "every word uttered by every Reagan administration official" in congressional testimony on El Salvador. Abrams denounced Torricelli's words as "McCarthyite crap". Documentation eventually emerged proving that the Reagan administration had known about El Mozote and other human rights violations all along.

[edit] Seeking regime change in Panama

On 30 June 1987, the United States State Department demanded the ouster of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. Abrams, then the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, made the announcement. Abrams took note of a resolution passed on 23 June by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee demanding the creation of a "democratic government" in Panama, and officially concurred, thus making the toppling of Noriega the official U.S. policy. Abrams also demanded that the Panamanian military be freed of "political corruption."

[edit] Iran-Contra affair

During the Iran-Contra Affair, Abrams was indicted for giving false testimony about his role in the illicit money-raising schemes by the special prosecutor handling the case, but he pleaded guilty to two lesser offenses, both felonies, of withholding information from Congress in order to avoid a trial and a possible jail term. Quoted in a 30 May 1994 article in Legal Times, Abrams spoke of his prosecutors as "filthy bastards", the proceedings against him "Kafkaesque," and members of the Senate Intelligence Committee "pious clowns" whose raison d'etre was to ask him "abysmally stupid" questions.[1] President George H. W. Bush pardoned convicted felon Abrams along with a number of other Iran-Contra defendants shortly before leaving office in 1992.

[edit] Neoconservative support

During the 1990s, Abrams worked for a number of think tanks and eventually became head of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he wrote widely on foreign policy issues. He remained an integral part of the tight-knit neoconservative foreign policy community in Washington that revolved around one of his early mentors, Richard Perle, and former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick at the American Enterprise Institute. Abrams is a member of the staunchly neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and was one of the signatories of the 26 January 1998, PNAC Letter sent to President Bill Clinton which called for regime-change in Iraq. Critics of the Bush administration see the letter as evidence that a second Gulf War was a foregone conclusion.

Like Perle, Abrams favors a Middle East strategy based on the overwhelming military power of both the United States and Israel and a military alliance between Israel and Turkey against what are considered hostile Arab states, such as Syria and Iraq, in order to create a "broader strategic context" that would ensure whatever state might emerge on Palestinian territory would be pro-American. Abrams is a staunch defender of Israel, and has publicly assailed the "land-for-peace" formula that has guided US policy in the Arab-Israeli conflict since the 1967 war.

James Zogby, the director of the Arab-American Institute, said Abrams' appointment sent "a very dangerous message to the Arab world" and asserts that the neocons have control of "all the major instruments of decision-making except for the State Department."

In 1997, Abrams published a book, Faith or Fear, which warned American Jews that assimilating within the secular U.S. culture posed the danger of a gradual loss of Jewish identity.

[edit] Special Assistant to President Bush

Following Republican George W. Bush's assumption of power in 2001, Abrams was appointed to the post of Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director on the National Security Council for Near East and North African Affairs on 2 December 2002. His appointment by the White House was considered highly controversial due to his involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair.

[edit] 2002 Venezuelan coup

The Observer and other journals have alleged that Abrams planned the Venezuelan coup attempt of 2002 against Hugo Chávez. These publications claim that he and Otto Reich, interim Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere in the Bush administration, were not only aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it and discussed it in some detail, right down to its timing, and estimated an excellent chance of success. [2] [3]

[edit] Deputy National Security Advisor

On 2 February 2005, President George W. Bush appointed Abrams Deputy National Security Advisor. [4]

Abrams accompanied Condoleezza Rice as a primary advisor on her visits to the Middle East in late July 2006 in the course of discussions relating to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. [5]

[edit] Affiliation history

[edit] Institutional affiliations

[edit] Government service

  • National Security Council: Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East and North African Affairs, 2002 to present
  • National Security Council: Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and International Operations, 2001–02
  • U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom: Chairman, 2000-2001; Commissioner, 1999–2001
  • Inter-American Foundation: nominated as member of Board of Directors for the 1985–90 term
  • Department of State: Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, 1985-89
  • Department of State: Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, 1981–85
  • Department of State: Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, 1981
  • Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan: Chief of Staff, Special Counsel, 1977–79
  • Sen. Henry M. Jackson: Staffer/Special Counsel, 1975–76
  • Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations: Assistant Counsel, 1975

[edit] Corporate connections/business interests

  • Verner, Lipfert, Bernhard and McPherson: Associate, 1979–81
  • Breed, Abbott and Morgan: Attorney, 1973–75

[edit] Education

[edit] Books

[edit] External links

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