REPORT: CIA DRUG ALLEGATIONS FALSE

The CIA did not play a role in bringing crack cocaine into the Los Angeles
area in the 1980s, the House Intelligence Committee said in a report.

Thursday's report, the latest in a series by probes to exonerate the CIA,
said no evidence was found of any conspiracy by CIA agents to bring drugs
into the United States.

"Bottom line: the allegations were false," said the committee chairman, Rep.
Porter Goss, R-Fla.

Allegations of CIA links to drug dealers surfaced in an August 1996 series
published by the San Jose Mercury News, suggesting a San Francisco Bay-area
drug ring sold cocaine in Los Angeles and funneled profits to the Nicaraguan
Contra rebels for the better part of a decade.