Iran Paid Bosnian Leader, CIA Says -- Documents Tell Of $500,000 In Cash For Fall Campaign

WASHINGTON - The Central Intelligence Agency has evidence that Iranian agents secretly delivered at least $500,000 in cash to Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic for his campaign before last fall's Bosnian elections, according to classified documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

The CIA discovered that the Iranians gave Izetbegovic at least two pieces of luggage stuffed with money, each containing $250,000, to help fund his campaign in the weeks leading up to the elections, according to the documents.

The allegations have strengthened the CIA's belief that Iranian influence in Bosnia remains strong and deep more than a year after the Dayton, Ohio, peace accords, contradicting the Clinton administration's public assertions that U.S. pressure has forced Bosnia's Muslim government to loosen its ties with Iran.

In fact, CIA analysts believe Izetbegovic has been "co-opted by the Iranians" and is now "literally on their payroll," according to a classified report based on the CIA's analysis of the issue.

Despite this, administration officials acknowledged yesterday that President Clinton agreed to release $100 million worth of U.S. military aid to Bosnia even after the CIA uncovered the Iranian payments to Izetbegovic and reported the information to administration officials.

The U.S. aid had been withheld from the Bosnians for months because of U.S. concerns about continuing Iranian influence in Bosnia. But the aid was finally released in November after Izetbegovic's government gave in to U.S. pressure and agreed to fire a senior official with ties to Iran.

An administration official said the United States secretly told Izetbegovic the Iranian cash payments were "unacceptable" but released the $100 million in military hardware to the Bosnians anyway.

"The Iranian contributions gave us pause," said the official. "It was raised with the Bosnians." But Clinton allowed U.S. military support to flow because the Iranian cash payments to Izetbegovic did not technically violate the narrowly drawn certification requirements Congress had imposed on the U.S. aid.

CIA spokesman David Christian declined today to discuss the Los Angeles Times account. But he said U.S. intelligence had concluded that Bosnia had severed military and intelligence links with Iran, as required by the Dayton peace accords.

Izetbegovic, trained as both an Islamic scholar and a lawyer, and his Muslim faction won the Bosnian elections in September. The elections led to the creation of a new government with a three-member presidency chaired by Izetbegovic.

Victory by vote fraud?

At the time, Bosnian Serb leaders charged that Izetbegovic's victory over Momcilo Krajisnik, an ethnic Serb, for the chairmanship of the presidency was due to vote fraud. But the election was still certified by Western monitors, led by a retired U.S. diplomat.

An administration official conceded yesterday that Iranian influence in Bosnia continues to be a vexing problem. He stressed, however, that the administration still believes Iran's presence has diminished as a result of U.S. pressure.

For months, the U.S. intelligence community has been issuing troubling reports sharply at odds with the administration's reassuring public statements, and warning that the Iranians are not fading away.

For example, analysts at the National Security Agency, the super-secret agency that handles electronic eavesdropping and code-breaking, reported in September that "in spite of the agreed terms," under the peace accords reached in 1995 in Dayton, "Iranian Revolutionary Guard personnel remain active throughout Bosnia."

CIA analysts also noted that the Iranian presence was again expanding last fall through the opening of a new consulate in the Bosnian city of Mostar, while elsewhere in Bosnia the Iranians opened a new radio station, a new cultural center, two "reconstruction centers" and a Red Crescent Society office.

Fronts for Guard

"Some of these activities are known to be fronts for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard" and Iranian intelligence, according to a classified report on the matter.

CIA analysts have also split with the White House and the State Department by saying the Clinton administration must share blame for the continuing Iranian presence.

In classified briefings for Congress, CIA officials have said that the administration's 1994 decision to give its tacit approval to the creation of a covert Iranian arms pipeline into Bosnia played a central role in the dramatic increase in Iranian influence in Bosnia.

That belief puts the CIA analysts squarely at odds with White House claims that Clinton's "green light" for Iranian arms shipments did little to increase the Iranian role in Bosnia.

"There is no question that the policy of getting arms into Bosnia was of great assistance in allowing the Iranians to dig in and create good relations with the Bosnian government," a CIA officer said in a classified deposition before Congress.

The CIA has offered Congress detailed evidence to back up its allegations. Within weeks of Clinton's decision to sanction Iranian arms shipments in April 1994, the CIA says, hundreds of Iranian Revolutionary Guard fighters and trainers poured into the country, doubling the Iranian-sponsored presence to 400 or more.

Independently commanded unit

Two weeks after the green light was given, United Nations peacekeepers for the first time detected an independently commanded Iranian Revolutionary Guard unit on the ground in Bosnia.

And just 10 days after the green light, Iran appointed its first ambassador to Bosnia, Mohammed Taherian, who had previously served as Iran's ambassador to Afghanistan at a time when Iran was funneling aid and arms to the Afghan rebels.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.