Key Lawmaker, Barr Clash Over Secret Iraq Data

The Bush Administration, alarmed about Congress’ recent disclosures of the White House’s 1988-90 policies toward Iraq, has told the chairman of the House Banking Committee that it will not provide him with any more classified information unless he agrees to stop making it public.

The warning, in a letter to Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Tex.) from Atty. Gen. William P. Barr, paves the way for a possible confrontation between Congress and the Administration over the banking panel’s probe of U.S. dealings with the Baghdad government.

Although Barr provided no specifics about his charges, the committee has been investigating U.S. links with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein--as far back as the Reagan Administration, when Bush was vice president--as well as loans made by the Atlanta branch of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, which some say have been used to finance Iraqi weapons purchases.

Gonzalez has been particularly critical of the Administration’s practices in 1988 through 1990, branding them as part of “a flawed and tragic policy that ignored applicable laws and ultimately led to the loss of countless human lives.”

It wasn’t immediately clear how the two sides might resolve their differences. The Administration long has been annoyed at Gonzalez’s insistence on reviewing its pre-Desert Storm policies, and Gonzalez has been equally adamant about obtaining the data.

In an interview Sunday, the Banking Committee chairman said he will continue to subpoena Administration documents relating to that issue and might well ask the full House to issue a contempt-of-Congress citation if Barr refuses.

Asked whether he intended to comply with Barr’s demands, Gonzalez replied: “Absolutely not. We’ve still got 46% of the way to go” before completing the investigation. Both Barr’s letters and Gonzalez’s response were made public by the congressman’s office here.

Gonzalez’s investigations and outspoken criticism of the Administration have been a thorn in the side of the White House. Early last week, the Texas lawmaker said he had information that about $100 million in counterfeit dollars is circulating through Europe and the Middle East.

Barr did not specify which of Gonzalez’s statements had led to the decision to deny him further information, but he warned that “your recent disclosures of classified information” on the House floor and in the Congressional Record “raise serious concerns.”

In his letter, Gonzalez said the Administration had been “reluctant” to cooperate since his committee began investigating the extent of U.S. aid to Iraq in the 1980s. “Now your letter suggests that the Bush Administration plans to move from foot dragging to outright obstruction,” Gonzalez wrote.

In truth, the attorney general’s letter did not refuse such information permanently. But it did warn that the Administration would not provide any more classified documents “until specific assurances are received” that the documents would be protected from unauthorized disclosure.

The letter was not the first time that a congressional committee or its chairman has received such a warning from an Administration. On several occasions over the years, intelligence agencies have complained that lawmakers have handled classified data improperly.

Nevertheless, Gonzalez said Sunday that he saw the attorney general’s action as an attempt to cover up information that properly should be made available for public scrutiny.

“You should not try to hide behind generalities about ‘national security,’ ” Gonzalez wrote in his reply to Barr. “Clearly there is justification to review the Administration’s policy toward Iraq.”

The Administration has been besieged by recent disclosures--many of them in The Times--that it secretly allowed Saudi Arabia to provide American-made weapons to Hussein and that it did not pursue evidence that U.S. humanitarian aid to Iraq may have been traded for weapons.

The Justice Department itself is now probing allegations that some Administration officials altered records sent to Congress to disguise shipment of technology to Iraq that might have proved useful to Hussein’s military machine.

Ironically, Gonzalez has argued that, despite Iraq’s longtime record of human rights abuses, the United States may have been justified in extending it aid as long as the help was designed to prevent Iran from winning the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War.

But he contends that the United States should have ended its support in 1988, when the two countries ended their hostilities.