Iran-Contra Figure Met Pentagon Officials By PAULINE JELINEK .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon has had renewed contacts with a discredited Iranian exile who was a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s. Two officials from the Defense Department's policy office met over a three-day period in late 2001 with Manucher Ghorbanifar, and one of them had another meeting with Ghorbanifar this year, a senior defense official said Friday. Ghorbanifar attended the series of meetings in an undisclosed European country between the two defense officials and two other Iranians the Bush administration had been told had information useful to the United States in its then-fledgling global war on terrorism, said the senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The meetings occurred not long after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he said. Ghorbanifar didn't arrange the meetings, nor was he the one believed to have information to offer, the official said not explaining how Ghorbanifar got involved and why he sat in on the meetings. One of the two defense officials in the 2001 meetings also had another chance contact in 2003 with Ghorbanifar in a different location, the Pentagon source said. The 2003 meeting was unplanned and unscheduled, he said. Earlier Friday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at President Bush's Texas ranch that Pentagon officials met more than a year ago with Ghorbanifar, and referred to it as a single meeting. Asked if meeting with Ghorbanifar was a good idea and if the administration wants a regime change in Iran, Bush told reporters: ``We support the aspirations of those who desire freedom in Iran.'' Another senior Pentagon official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the defense participants in the meetings were Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin from the office of Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy. Franklin was on loan to Feith's office from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the official said. Rumsfeld's comments followed disclosure of the Ghorbanifar contact by the Long Island, N.Y., newspaper Newsday. ``One or two Pentagon people were approached by some people who had information about Iranians that wanted to provide information to the United States government,'' the defense secretary said. Ghorbanifar, according to congressional testimony 15 years ago, was among those suggesting that profits from the Reagan White House's secret arms-for-hostages deals with Iran be funneled into covert arms shipments to U.S.-backed Contra rebels fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua. Subsequent public exposure of the two operations that the Reagan administration had concealed from Congress gave rise to the scandal that scarred the last two years of Ronald Reagan's presidency. Known to the CIA even before the Iran-Contra scandal as someone to avoid, Ghorbanifar in the 1980s failed two lie detector tests for the spy agency. It issued a ``burn notice'' to other agencies advising that the U.S. government should have nothing to do with him. ``Ghorbanifar is clearly a fabricator and wheeler-dealer who has undertaken activities prejudicial to U.S. interests,'' said a CIA report that surfaced in congressional hearings into the Iran-Contra scandal in 1987. Despite the report, Ghorbanifar, an exiled Iranian businessman, managed to attend meeting with Reagan's aides about arms deals, playing on U.S. desires to free American hostages held by terrorists in Lebanon. Asked Friday to explain the Pentagon's contact with Ghorbanifar, Rumsfeld said ``people come in offering suggestions or information or possible contacts, and sometimes they're pursued.'' ``A meeting did take place, and the information was moved around the interagency process to all the departments and agencies,'' he added. ``There wasn't anything there that was of substance or of value that needed to be pursued further.'' Rumsfeld said it was ``absolutely not'' the case that the meeting with Ghorbanifar was intended to be part of any other ongoing, unofficial talks with Iranians. The Bush administration's posture toward Iran has become increasingly strident since the Sept. 11 attacks. After Iran's pro-reform president was re-elected in the summer of 2001, some Iranians had predicted Tehran would push for improved relations with the United States, but Iran's supreme leader ruled out help for a U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan. Iran, however, condemned the Sept. 11 attacks and assured U.S. officials through Swiss intermediaries it would try to rescue any American military personnel it found in distress on its territory. In his State of the Union speech on Jan. 29, 2002, Bush characterized Iran as part of an axis of evil. Since then, administration officials have repeatedly denounced what they characterize as Iran's expanded support of regional terrorist groups and its program to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is solely to produce electricity. Associated Press reporter Pete Yost contributed to this report. Iran Journalists Sit in to Protest By ALI AKBAR DAREINI .c The Associated Press TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - More than 200 pro-reform journalists held a vigil in Iran, saying they were protesting a continuing media crackdown and a lack press freedoms. The journalists lit candles on Friday to mourn the anniversary of the death of Mahmoud Saremi, a reporter of the official Islamic Republic News Agency who was killed in 1988 by the former Taliban rulers in Afghanistan, and the death of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, who died in Iranian police custody last month. ``Today, we have gathered here to tell the people of the world that freedom of the pen in Iran is restricted. Today, the biggest problem of journalists in Iran is absence of justice and freedom,'' Mohsen Kadivar, a leading reformist cleric and writer, told the audience. ``It's not a source of pride that Iran is known as the biggest jail for journalists in the Middle East ... the way you rulers behave has no consistency with the Quran, which respects the pen,'' he said, drawing applause from the journalists. The Quran is Islam's holy book. Hossein Bastani, editor of the reformist Yas-e-Nou daily, said his and other reformist papers were publishing just four pages on Saturday, instead of the usual 16. ``Yas-e-Nou will be published with only four pages Saturday to protest press restrictions. There will be nothing in the paper other than coverage of the sit-in,'' he said. Mass closures of newspapers began in April 2000, days after Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said 10 to 15 reformist publications were ``bases of the enemy.'' Hard-liners have closed down more than 90 pro-democracy publications and jailed several dozen writers and political activists since then, almost all of them without trial or in closed trials without a jury. Iran-Contra Figure Met Pentagon Officials By PAULINE JELINEK .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon has had renewed contacts with a discredited Iranian exile who was a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s. Two officials from the Defense Department's policy office met over a three-day period in late 2001 with Manucher Ghorbanifar, and one of them had another meeting with Ghorbanifar this year, a senior defense official said Friday. Ghorbanifar attended the series of meetings in an undisclosed European country between the two defense officials and two other Iranians the Bush administration had been told had information useful to the United States in its then-fledgling global war on terrorism, said the senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The meetings occurred not long after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he said. Ghorbanifar didn't arrange the meetings, nor was he the one believed to have information to offer, the official said not explaining how Ghorbanifar got involved and why he sat in on the meetings. One of the two defense officials in the 2001 meetings also had another chance contact in 2003 with Ghorbanifar in a different location, the Pentagon source said. The 2003 meeting was unplanned and unscheduled, he said. Earlier Friday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at President Bush's Texas ranch that Pentagon officials met more than a year ago with Ghorbanifar, and referred to it as a single meeting. Asked if meeting with Ghorbanifar was a good idea and if the administration wants a regime change in Iran, Bush told reporters: ``We support the aspirations of those who desire freedom in Iran.'' Another senior Pentagon official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the defense participants in the meetings were Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin from the office of Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy. Franklin was on loan to Feith's office from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the official said. Rumsfeld's comments followed disclosure of the Ghorbanifar contact by the Long Island, N.Y., newspaper Newsday. ``One or two Pentagon people were approached by some people who had information about Iranians that wanted to provide information to the United States government,'' the defense secretary said. Ghorbanifar, according to congressional testimony 15 years ago, was among those suggesting that profits from the Reagan White House's secret arms-for-hostages deals with Iran be funneled into covert arms shipments to U.S.-backed Contra rebels fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua. Subsequent public exposure of the two operations that the Reagan administration had concealed from Congress gave rise to the scandal that scarred the last two years of Ronald Reagan's presidency. Known to the CIA even before the Iran-Contra scandal as someone to avoid, Ghorbanifar in the 1980s failed two lie detector tests for the spy agency. It issued a ``burn notice'' to other agencies advising that the U.S. government should have nothing to do with him. ``Ghorbanifar is clearly a fabricator and wheeler-dealer who has undertaken activities prejudicial to U.S. interests,'' said a CIA report that surfaced in congressional hearings into the Iran-Contra scandal in 1987. Despite the report, Ghorbanifar, an exiled Iranian businessman, managed to attend meeting with Reagan's aides about arms deals, playing on U.S. desires to free American hostages held by terrorists in Lebanon. Asked Friday to explain the Pentagon's contact with Ghorbanifar, Rumsfeld said ``people come in offering suggestions or information or possible contacts, and sometimes they're pursued.'' ``A meeting did take place, and the information was moved around the interagency process to all the departments and agencies,'' he added. ``There wasn't anything there that was of substance or of value that needed to be pursued further.'' Rumsfeld said it was ``absolutely not'' the case that the meeting with Ghorbanifar was intended to be part of any other ongoing, unofficial talks with Iranians. The Bush administration's posture toward Iran has become increasingly strident since the Sept. 11 attacks. After Iran's pro-reform president was re-elected in the summer of 2001, some Iranians had predicted Tehran would push for improved relations with the United States, but Iran's supreme leader ruled out help for a U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan. Iran, however, condemned the Sept. 11 attacks and assured U.S. officials through Swiss intermediaries it would try to rescue any American military personnel it found in distress on its territory. In his State of the Union speech on Jan. 29, 2002, Bush characterized Iran as part of an axis of evil. Since then, administration officials have repeatedly denounced what they characterize as Iran's expanded support of regional terrorist groups and its program to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is solely to produce electricity. Associated Press reporter Pete Yost contributed to this report.