Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Mosbacher, Scowcroft decline to testify on aid to Iraq Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 13:27:07 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION \SS (WS) \HD Mosbacher, Scowcroft decline to testify on aid to Iraq \BY ASSOCIATED PRESS A week before Election Day, Bush administration officials are declining to testify before Congress on the politically charged issue of U.S. technology exports to Iraq before the Persian Gulf war. National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and former Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher ignored invitations from the Senate Banking Committee to appear as witnesses at a hearing today. Neither Mr. Scowcroft nor Mr. Mosbacher responded to the Banking Committee's request, a committee aide said yesterday. Although the two have not formally replied, their associates told the committee they almost certainly will not appear, said the aide, speaking on condition of anonymity. In a related development yesterday, Attorney General William P. Barr named J. William Roberts, a federal prosecutor in Illinois, to head a task force helping investigate $5 billion in illegal loans to Iraq made by the Atlanta office of an Italian bank. "As a matter of long-standing precedent, the national security adviser does not testify on [Capitol] Hill," Scowcroft spokesman Walter Kansteiner said yesterday. He said Mr. Scowcroft cannot appear because he is a personal adviser to President Bush. The administration invoked this executive privilege argument earlier this year when it turned down similar requests from the House Banking and Judiciary committees for Mr. Scowcroft to testify. Mr. Scowcroft, however, submitted an opinion piece on the subject to The Washington Post earlier this month. His article, published Oct. 10, was titled "We Didn't 'Coddle' Saddam." A spokesman for Mr. Mosbacher, who is now a top fund-raiser at the Republican National Committee, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment. Mr. Mosbacher also declined to appear before the House Banking and Judiciary committees. The House panels were examining U.S. aid to Saddam Hussein's regime before the Gulf war, which included $1.5 billion in technology with potential military uses from 1985 until Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. The Commerce Department gave U.S. companies licenses for the exports. Among other things, the task force headed by Mr. Roberts is responsible for investigating Commerce Department documents concerning the licenses. Last week, Mr. Bush said he may have "overstated it" when he asserted in his final debate with presidential challengers that no U.S. technology was used in Iraq's nuclear weapons program. Mr. Bush said in the debate that "there hasn't been one single scintilla of evidence that there's any U.S. technology involved in it." But the former head of the United Nations nuclear inspections team in Iraq, David Kay, disputed that statement. Three federal agencies are investigating U.S.-made equipment found at nuclear development sites in Iraq after the Gulf war. Another former Commerce Department official, Dennis Kloske, also will not appear at today's hearing, the committee aide said. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM