Iran Arms Deal ‘Failed the People’--Bush

Vice President George Bush, who escaped any direct criticism from the Tower Commission, said today that the trading of arms for hostages was wrong and “failed the American people.”

In his first public appearance since release of the commission’s report, Bush told the North Suburban Chamber of Commerce that the Administration’s Iran policy began as an effort to reach out to moderate elements in that country.

However, he went on to quote the Tower Commission’s description of the policy as evolving into a “pattern of successive bargained exchanges of arms for hostages.”

“Arms for hostages is wrong and at this stage the implementation of the policy failed, it failed the American people and it failed the President,” he said.

Before the report was released, Bush had conceded that mistakes were made, but insisted that the secret arms sales were an effort to establish contacts with moderate elements in Iran, rather than an effort to trade weapons for Americans held in Lebanon.

Bush, making a political foray into New England, had his presidential prospects boosted by an endorsement Thursday from Republican Gov. John H. Sununu of New Hampshire on the same day the Tower report was released.

After his luncheon speech in Bedford, Bush was flying to Manchester, N.H., to address a Lincoln Day dinner in the state that holds the nation’s first presidential primary.

Bush, in an interview in today’s New York Times, said that mistakes were made and that the White House decision-making process had been flawed, but he said he does not believe that the Tower report shows that any laws were broken, and he wasn’t going to go around the country “trying to cover my own backside.”