Only Bush Can End Iran Issue, Democrat Says
The chairman of the House Iran-Contra committee said today that Vice President George Bush’s position on arms sales to Iran will continue to be an issue until Bush responds to unanswered questions.
“There are a long list of questions that I don’t know the answers to,” Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) said in an interview on “CBS This Morning.”
“The position of the vice president remains unclear with respect to the sale of arms to Iran and until it is clear, I think it’ll continue to be an issue.”
For months, Bush, a GOP presidential candidate, has sought to put the Iran-Contra episode behind him. “Mistakes were made. And now, let’s go on about the nation’s business,” he said last November when the congressional Iran-Contra committees released a 690-page report about the affair.
The report concluded that Bush was a minor player in the sale of U.S.-made weapons to Iran and diversion of the profits to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
“The vice president attended several meetings on the Iran initiative, but none of the participants could recall his views,” it said.
Hamilton said the committees did not ask Bush to testify because it was unclear whether Congress had the constitutional right to compel testimony from the vice president.
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