The Truth about Lockerbie - MartinFrost.ws

A tale of three atrocities
And one theory just stared and stared at me. The Iranians were very angry at the time of Lockerbie.
On 3 rd July 1988, the United States' Navy shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Strait of Hormuz in
Iranian airspace. All 290 passengers and crew aboard the Airbus A300B2, a civilian airliner, included 66
children, were killed in the attack. This death toll places it among one of the world's most deadly airline
disasters.
According to the US government, it was an accident. US Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes,
which was in Iranian territorial waters when the atrocity occurred, had mistaken Flight 655 for an
attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter. The Iranian government didn't think it was an accident. It claimed the
Vincennes deliberately shot down Flight 655. In mid-July, the Iranian Foreign Minister asked the United
Nations Security Council to condemn the United States, saying the attack “could not have been a
mistake” and was a “criminal act”, “an atrocity” and a “massacre”. 7
lWhy the US had to help
My thoughts then turned to how the Iranians would take the downing of their plane. I realised they
would have been incensed by the attack and baying for revenge. The Guardian reported on 9 th July
1988:
"In Abu Dhabi, hundreds of angry Iranians held a memorial service for the dead on Thursday night. The
Iranian Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Mr Mustafa Foumeni Haeri, told angry and weeping
mourners: 'We will take our revenge in the proper time.'"
I spent a lot of time in Islington public library studying the culture and customs of Middle Eastern
countries while researching UTA. I realised the family of the Flight 655 victims and the Iranian
government had a right to seek equal retaliation – better known as “an eye for an eye” - for the plane
under a traditional law called Qesas 8 , a part of Iranian law which pre-dates the Islamification of the
country by nearly 1200 years.
One man, I realised, was particularly keen to avoid an Iranian terrorist attack. In July 1988, US vicepresident
George H.W. Bush was seeking to become the Republican's candidate in the US presidential
election. He annoyed Iran by refusing to apologise for Flight 655, saying “I will never apologize for the
United States of America, I don't care what the facts are.” 9
Bush doubtless feared an Iranian terror campaign would halt his accession to the presidency in the
same way that President Carter's 1980 re-election was doomed by the Iranian Hostage Crisis 10 . He
probably feared UN Security Council resolution UN616 of 21 st July 1988, which condemned the
downing of Flight 655, was not enough to prevent Iranian revenge attacks.
I believe that George H.W. Bush secured his election as the 41 st president of the United States by
giving the Iranians their measured revenge in blood for the Vincennes attack.
lHow the plot was formed
George H.W. Bush had been the de facto Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (DCI of the CIA)
under President Gerald Ford in 1976. So it would have been easy for George Bush to secure
assistance from senior CIA officials by secretly cutting a deal with the Iranians. Furthermore, helping
Bush secure the Republican nomination and presidency arguably benefited these officials. Reagan had
7 New York Times (1988) http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/15/world/iran-falls-short-in-drive-at-un-tocondemn-us-in-airbus-case.html
8 GlobLex – A Guide to the Legal System of the Islamic Republic of Iran
http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Iran.htm. Accessed October 2009
9 Time (1988) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,968407-2,00.html
10 Reagan's Lucky Day: Iranian Hostage Crisis Helped The Great Communicator To Victory, CBS News,
January 21, 2001
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