Oliver North, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, and National Security Advisor John Poindexter, in the Iran-Contra affair, arranged for the indirect transfer of arms to Iran in its drawn-out war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, in a circumvention of the Boland Amendments. This amendments were intended to prevent the expenditure of US funds to support the Nicaraguan Contras. Since the arms-for-hostages deal struck by the Reagan Administration channeled money to the Contras in their civil war against the Sandinista Junta in Nicaragua, the legal interpretation at the time dictated that the CIA, as an organization, could not participate in Iran-Contra.