Double standards of Clinton's accuser

Henry Hyde is to be Bill Clinton's chief accuser in the Senate trial about to begin. Henry represents the Sixth District of Illinois in the US House of Representatives. The Sixth District covers suburbs of Chicago, including Part Ridge, where Hillary Clinton grew up, and O'Hare Airport.

Henry has a tough case to make in contending, even if it is accepted that Bill Clinton lied under oath about the nature of his relationship with Monica Lewinski, that this amounts to the "high crimes and misdemeanours" required by the US constitution to justify the President's removal from office.

Mr Hyde's case would be far easier if a special independent counsel had found, say, that Bill Clinton deliberately and knowingly breached official US policy and law on a matter of significant public importance; that Bill Clinton did this having been advised that what he was doing was illegal; that he did this covertly, deceiving Congress and the American people; and that he tried to cover up his involvement in this by the destruction of documents.

It would be game, set and match for Mr Hyde if he had such material against Bill Clinton. Unfortunately for Mr Hyde, the case against Bill Clinton is a great deal more threadbare than the one I have suggested. But the odd thing about all this is that Mr Hyde had precisely such evidence against a president not so long ago, and nothing was done about it. Actually, not alone did Mr Hyde do nothing about it, he staunchly supported the president who was responsible for all this and went on to help elect as president the then vice-president, who was also heavily implicated in that affair.

I am referring to the Iran-Contra affair, which arose in November 1986, following the shooting down of an American cargo plane carrying military supplies to Contra forces in Nicaragua the previous month. The one surviving crew member, Eugene Hasenfus, said he was employed by the CIA. On November 3rd, 1986, a Lebanese magazine revealed the US government was selling arms to Iran to secure the release of American hostages. Subsequently it emerged that the proceeds from the sale were being used to fund the supply of weapons to the Contras.

The then attorney general, Edwin Meese III, secured the appointment of Laurence Walsh as special independent prosecutor, to establish what had happened. The following are extracts from Mr Walsh's final report:

"The investigations and prosecutions have shown that high-ranking administration officials violated laws and executive orders in the Iran/Contra matter . . .

`The sales of arms to Iran contravened US government policy and may have violated the Arms Export Control Act. Independent counsel is aware that the Reagan administration Justice Department took the position, after the November 1986 revelations, that the 1985 shipments of United States weapons to Iran did not violate the law.

"This post hoc position does not correspond with the contemporaneous advice given the President. As detailed within this report, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger [a lawyer with an extensive record in private practice and the former general counsel of the Bechtel Corporation] advised President Reagan in 1985 that the shipments were illegal. Finally, when Attorney General Meese conducted his initial inquiry into the Iran arms sales, he expressed concern that the shipments may have been illegal.

"The provision and co-ordination of support to the Contras violated the [congressional] ban on aid to military activities in Nicaragua . . .

"The Iran operations were carried out with the knowledge of, among others, President Ronald Reagan, Vice-President George Bush, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, and national security advisers Robert C. McFarlane and John M. Poindexter; of these officials, only Weinberger and Shultz dissented from the policy decision, and Weinberger eventually acquiesced by ordering the Department of Defence to provide the necessary arms; and large volumes of highly relevant, contemporaneously created documents were systematically and wilfully withheld from investigators by several Reagan administration officials.

"Following the revelation of these operations in October and November 1986, Reagan administration officials deliberately deceived the Congress and the public about the level and extent of official knowledge of and support for these operations.

"Independent counsel has concluded that the President's most senior advisers and the Cabinet members on the National Security Council participated in the strategy to make National Security staff members McFarlane, Poindexter and North the scapegoats, whose sacrifice would protect the Reagan administration in its final two years.

"Independent counsel discovered much of the best evidence of the cover-up in the final year of active investigation, too late for most prosecutions."

On the specific role played in that scandal by Ronald Reagan, Mr Walsh said: "The President set the stage for the illegal activities of others by encouraging and, in general terms, ordering support of the Contras during the October 1984 to October 1986 period when funds for the Contras were cut off [by Congress] and in authorising the sale of arms to Iran, in contravention of the US embargo on such sales.

"The President's disregard for civil laws enacted to limit presidential actions abroad - specifically the [congressional] ban, the Arms Export Control Act and congressional-notification requirements in covert-action laws - created a climate in which some of the government officers assigned to implement his policies felt emboldened to circumvent such laws."

Commenting on the role of George Bush, then vice-president, Laurence Walsh said: "Contrary to his public pronouncements, however, he was fully aware of the Iran arms sales. Bush was regularly briefed, along with the President, on the Iran arms sales, and he participated in discussions to obtain third-country support for the Contras".

Mr Walsh went on to state that Mr Bush had withheld crucial documentary information about his role in the affair, despite repeated requests for such information. Mr Bush also refused to be interviewed by the independent prosecutor.

After he left office, Ronald Reagan lied under oath about his role in the affair.

So how could it be that the lies on oath of Bill Clinton about a messy sexual embarrassment should be the basis for his removal from office, when the concerted lies, crimes and eventual perjuries of Ronald Reagan on a matter of official US policy should not occasion even a rebuke?