A secret 1995 agreement between the Clinton administration and then-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin was supposed to halt the transfer of nuclear technology and military equipment to Iran.
But when the Russians continued to help build Iran's premier nuclear facility at Bushehr, the White House refused to impose sanctions.
Under the accord hammered out by Chernomyrdin and then-Vice President Al Gore, Russia had agreed to end all weapons sales to Iran by Dec. 31, 1999.
But after uncovering the confidential arrangement, the New York Times reported that the deal "essentially exempted Russia from American sanctions on arms deliveries to Iran [and] emboldened Moscow to ignore other agreements, particularly on sales of missile and nuclear technology to Iran."
"It was one more of these strange deals that Gore and Chernomyrdin had that were kept from people," complained Gordon C. Oehler, who directed the Nonproliferation Center of the Central Intelligence Agency until he retired in 1998.
Oehler told the Times: "If this had been disclosed to Congress, the committees would have gone berserk, absolutely. But the larger problem is, if you have these under-the-table deals that give the Russians permission to do these things, it gives the signal that it's O.K. to do other things."
Within a few years the Russians reportedly had 600 scientists working at the Bushehr nuclear plant.
When Sen. John McCain found out about the secret Gore deal, he complained that continued Russian defiance "should have triggered sanctions against Moscow" under the Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act.
"If the administration has acquiesced," fumed McCain, "then I believe they have violated both the intent and the letter of the law."
The Russians insisted that despite the secret accord, they were obligated to complete Bushehr, saying the deal they signed with Tehran preceded the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement.
By Nov. 2000, however, then-Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani simply announced that the Gore deal was "dead and buried," a statement that prompted no objections by the Russians.
