Lake’s Confirmation as CIA Chief Called Uncertain

Anthony Lake’s confirmation as CIA director remains uncertain, two key Republican senators said Sunday, despite his attempts to make amends for failing to tell Congress about Iranian arms sales to Bosnian Muslims two years ago.

Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), likely to take over as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee next month, called the Bosnia policy that Lake masterminded as President Clinton’s national security advisor “duplicitous” and said, “It crossed the line.”

“It’s too early to say what we will do with his nomination, but I think we’ve got to be fair and we’ve got to be searching and we’ve got to scrutinize this,” Shelby said on ABC-TV’s “This Week.”

Lake has begun contacting Senate leaders to say he now wishes he had told Congress about Clinton’s decision to raise no objection to the 1994 Iranian arms shipment to Bosnia-Herzegovina, a White House aide said Sunday.

The arms sale conflicted with the Clinton administration’s public stance in support of a U.N. arms embargo. But the administration feared that without an infusion of weaponry, Bosnia might collapse under pressure from rebel Serbs.

Although Congress at the time was urging the administration to defy the U.N. embargo, congressional leaders were upset when they learned the arms came from Iran.

White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta echoed Lake’s regret Sunday, yet defended the administration’s actions as necessary at the time.

“It’s always better if you work closely with those in Congress when you do these kinds of things,” Panetta conceded on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.” “Sometimes time allows that to happen; sometimes it doesn’t. In this case, I don’t think it did.”

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the outgoing chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said the “serious questions” Lake faces also include why he did not immediately sell stocks in four energy companies in 1993, when the White House counsel’s office told him they posed a possible conflict of interest.

According to Mike McCurry, White House press secretary, Lake ordered his accountant to sell the securities and thought they had been sold. Lake sold the stocks in 1995 when he realized he still owned them.

Lake’s hearing is “very much up in the air,” Specter said on CNN’s “Late Edition With Frank Sesno.”

But Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), vice chairman of the Senate intelligence panel, was optimistic about Lake’s chances.

“I think he’ll be confirmed,” Kerrey said on the CNN program. “There are a lot of questions that need to be answered, and I expect Tony Lake to be able to answer all of them.”