Iran-Contra Hearings - Testimony of Colonel Oliver North.
Iran-Contra Hearings - Testimony of Colonel Oliver North.
Iran-Contra Hearings - Testimony of Colonel Oliver North
Iran-Contra Hearings - Testimony of Colonel Oliver North.
Henry Hyde-Every time something comes up in excess of the budget we pay no attention to it. The public law 95435 which was passed some years ago says that we can t spend any more money then we take in. That is as ignored as the tenth amendment of the constitution. And someday I hope the legal scholars on this committee will find time to do a paper on the tenth amendment and why it is atrophy and ignored. Now if we can t ignore the law or exempt ourselves from it, we play games with the process. Do you know how we got our pay raise? Now the Senators voted no, terrific. And by the way thank god we got the pay raise. I m happy I need the money. I earned the money. But you know what we did in the house, we waited under the guidance of the stage director over there, the Speaker, till 30 days had elapsed and it was vested. It could not be unvested and then we got a vote on it. We waited until it was locked in and then we voted on it. And we could all tell our constitutes, I didn t vote for that pay raise, that s the way we do things. So there s much to be learned from watching us. Now let me, and they don t watch us close enough.
Iran-Contra Hearings - Testimony of Colonel Oliver North.
Henry Hyde-Let me put my own views on record Colonel North. I think lying to Congress; I think arms for hostages; arms to Iran; I think operating the Contra support operation out the White House was wrong. And I think that failure to confer with Congress was wrong and we re paying a fearful price for that. But having said that I think a few more points need to be made. Now why was this different? Why didn t you have to lie to Congress? Why was this different then other covert actions? Well you know it s very simple when you have a covert action that everybody agrees with, isn t that correct? When you get a controversial one than you get a whole different problem, Is that not so? Oliver North. It is.
Iran-Contra Hearings - Testimony of Colonel Oliver North.
Henry Hyde-In other words, when you have a liberal democratic Congress, God bless them all, the people elected them and that s democracy and all that good stuff. The conservative republican president you ve got a recipe for gridlock. Don t you? You have a controversial program that cannot get the consensus that s necessary and so it s a recipe for gridlock. Nothing will happen. Those are the problems we have to deal with here in Central American policy. Now the consequences Colonel North of what happened has damaged the administration, hopefully not terminally but seriously damaged it. Our policy in Central America has been damaged. We have embarrassed ten countries, at least ten countries that helped to keep the Nicaraguan resistance alive, while Congress played Hamlet over whether what to do to supporters or not to support.
Iran-Contra Hearings - Testimony of Colonel Oliver North.
Henry Hyde-And I think of little Brunei, the one country we are permitted to mention. Brunei is an on cave, on the northwest corner of the island of Borneo with less people in it than Shreveport, Louisiana. And yet it contributed 10 million dollars to protect our interests in Central America, when Congress was unwilling to do so. And Brunei doesn t want anything from us. Nothing. They don t need anything from us. But we have embarrassed them and we embarrass ourselves when we do that.