1985 Beirut Car Bombing - Responsibility

Responsibility

Reporter Bob Woodward wrote that CIA director William Casey, while lying on his deathbed, had admitted personal culpability in the attack, which he suggests was carried out with funding from Saudi Arabia. Fadlallah would later suggest the amount $3,000,000 as the price that had been offered by the Saudis for Casey to arrange the bombing. Woodward suggests that Fadlallah accepted $2 million from the Saudis to stop attacks from Hezbollah. Asked about the allegations, President Reagan responded, "Never would I sign anything that would authorize an assassination... I never have, and I never will, and I didn't."

The U.S. National Security Advisor, Robert McFarlane, stated that those responsible for the bomb may have had American training, but asserted that they were "rogue operative," and the CIA in no way sanctioned or supported the attack. Woodward's own account of his conversation with Casey suggests that Casey's action was "off the books".