1. Iran-Contra Affair
The Iran-Contra Affair took place during the Reagan administration. During the Iraq and Iran war, Iran reached out to the United States and made a request for weapons. Reagan, who was frustrated at his inability to free hostages from Iran, made the deal with the backing of Robert McFarlane and CIA director, William Casey. The United States was to provide Iran with over 30 million dollars in weapons in exchange for seven hostages. Only three hostages were released and they were immediately replaced by three more. Reagan initially denied the affair, but started to come a week later.
2. Watergate
The Watergate scandal happened during the Nixon administration. While Nixon was running for reelection, he had seven people break into the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate headquarters. The seven burglars stole highly sensitive documents and attempted to wiretap the phones. The wiretaps failed, and the group returned on June 17, 1972 to try again. This time, they were caught by security. Nixon and his administration originally denied all involvement. It later came to light that Nixon had wired the group hundreds of thousands of dollars in, “hush money” and that Nixon had recorded all his phone conversations. Nixon drug his feet for as long as he could when it came to releasing the taps, but when the Supreme Court ordered him to, there was no denying Nixon’s role in the crimes. Nixon resigned before he could be
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Yellowcake Forgery/ Yellow Cake Road
The Yellowcake Forgery centered around documents that were uncovered by an Italian intelligence group. The documents stated that Iraq had purchased Uranium from Africa. Little effort was put into trying to prove the credibility of the documents. George W. Bush went public with the information and cited it as one of his reasons for sending troops into Iraq. The documents were later proven to be fake. It is unknown if Bush and his speech writers knew that the papers were fake prior to his