Vote Set Today on Iran-Contra Panels’ Report

The congressional Iran-Contra committees are scheduled to vote today on a final report of their investigation, which some members and top staff attorneys say records their failure to get to the bottom of the scandal as promised when the probe began 11 months ago.

The critics in the committees said mistakes by the House and Senate panels--primarily the self-imposed deadlines that encouraged delaying tactics by the White House and assisted lawyers representing such key witnesses as Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North--helped to hem in the probe and discourage investigators from following up some important leads bearing on the Reagan Administration’s worst crisis.

North appeared briefly Wednesday before a special federal grand jury investigating his role in the Iran-Contra affair but a source said he invoked his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

Rush Criticized

In recent interviews with the Washington Post, the critics in the investigating committees said that in hindsight the problems included their own rush to open nationally televised public hearings, the initial choice of witnesses who quickly outmaneuvered the committees’ interrogators, foot-dragging by executive branch agencies in providing key documents and a failure to question a number of witnesses.

They also faulted the desire of many panel members to quickly end the inquiry in the wake of North’s performance and Rear Adm. John M. Poindexter’s assertion that President Reagan had not known of the diversion of funds from the Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contras.

“We blew it,” a top committee counsel said recently. “At this point, it’s up to (independent counsel Lawrence E.) Walsh to find out what really happened.”

Meanwhile, it was reported Wednesday that the draft dissent by Republican members of the Iran-Contra committees concludes that Reagan did not know Iran arms sale profits were diverted to the Nicaraguan rebels and blasts the mostly Democratic majority for suggesting otherwise.

United Press International reported that the new draft of the biting 300-page dissent denounces the congressional committees’ proposed report as “a weapon in the ongoing guerrilla warfare (against the Administration) instead of an objective analysis.”

North, who was fired for his role in the scandal, emerged from the grand jury room several times Wednesday to consult with his defense lawyers about material in a black loose-leaf notebook he was holding.

He left 20 minutes after his appearance began and ignored reporters’ questions about whether he had taken the Fifth, but a source familiar with the case, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that he had done so.

North, wearing his green Marine Corps uniform, met with his attorneys and prosecutors for more than an hour before entering the grand jury room.