Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 13, 1994 TAG: 9410130068
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Formal Navy Secretary James Webb said disclosure of the Iranian arms sales - overseen by then-White House aide Oliver North, now the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate - caused the United States to favor Iraq in its foreign policy.
"The tilt toward Iraq led to the imbalance, which brought about the Persian Gulf War in 1991, and, in many ways, to the situation that we're seeing today," Webb said during the first of four airport news conferences with incumbent Democratic Sen. Charles Robb.
North ridiculed Webb's remarks, saying that Robb is getting desperate. "I'll tell you how desperate this guy really is: Yesterday it was George Bush's fault; today it's mine," North said.
North referred to Robb's statement to residents at a Virginia Beach nursing home that the United States would not face sending troops back to Kuwait if Bush had not decided to leave the Persian Gulf with Saddam Hussein still in power.
With less than four weeks before Election Day, the Senate contest remains a dead heat between North and Robb, according to a poll released Wednesday by Virginia Commonwealth University.
Each of the two major party candidates was the preference of 39 percent of 813 likely voters interviewed Oct. 6-11. Independent candidate Marshall Coleman was a distant third with 12 percent, while 9 percent said they were undecided.
In Norfolk, Coleman claimed North's handlers fear he will continue his recent string of false statements.
"Virginians deserve something better than a candidate who so effortlessly blends fact and fiction," he said.
Coleman was joined by Republican U.S. Sen. John Warner, who has declared North unfit for office because of his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.
North's only appearance was a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol with Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas. Both men lambasted Vice President Al Gore for questioning North's patriotism, but they minced no words in challenging President Clinton's leadership and loyalty.
Asked to comment on North's statement earlier in the week that Clinton is not his commander-in-chief, Dole said that he also has had to "swallow hard" to accept Clinton. Dole is a decorated World War II veteran who lost the use of his right arm in that war. Clinton avoided military service during the Vietnam War.
Webb, a Republican who attended the Naval Academy with North, campaigned for Robb for the second time in a week with airport news conferences in Norfolk, Richmond, Bristol and Roanoke.
In Richmond, Webb stressed he was not trying to suggest that the Iran-Contra scandal led directly to the Gulf War. Instead, he said it reflected more on North's "naivete" in trusting the Iranians.
"The Iran part of Iran-Contra hasn't been focused on enough," Webb said in Roanoke. "How utterly naive it was to sell weapons, trade weapons, give weapons, whatever they were doing, with the No.1 terrorist nation in the world."
At the time, Iran and Iraq were locked in a costly war. In order to distance itself from Iran after the disclosure of Iran-Contra, Webb said, the United States moved closer to Iraq and sent a military fleet to the Persian Gulf to protect oil tankers from Iranian attack.
At least one foreign policy analyst took exception to Webb's analysis.
Retired Army Col. Daniel M. Smith said U.S. policy began its tilt toward Iraq as a counterweight to Iran after the Shah's overthrow - several years before the United States sold arms to Iran.
Smith said that while Webb was in a position to know the thinking within the Pentagon at the time, there was no "perceptible change" in U.S. policy toward Iraq after Iran-Contra was disclosed.
Staff writers Margaret Edds and Dwayne Yancey, and Robert Little of Landmark News Service contributed to this story.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB