The congressional committees investigating the Iran-contra affair failed to question key figures, including former and current government officials, military personnel and mercenaries, who could have provided valuable information on government involvement in the Iranian arms sales and the contra resupply network run by firedNational Security aide Oliver North. 

Critics cite the absence of these witnesses as the committee's main failing. Although some of the witnesses did give depositions or sworn testimony to the committee staff, none of them was questioned by the entire committee. 

The potential witnesses fall into two categories: current or former highly-placed government and military officials, and those mercenaries who worked in the day-to-day resupply operation. 

The CIA role in the resupply operation was not examined during the public hearings which stretched from May to early August, although three CIA officials testified in closed session after those hearings ended. 

What could the missing witnesses tell the hearings? 

Theodore Shackley, a former CIA official and business associate of Richard Secord, could explain to the committees why he suggested to the National Security Council (NSC) that Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar be used as a middleman in an arms-for-hostages swap. 

Shackley met Ghorbanifar in November 1984 through an Iranian general with whom Shackley worked as a CIA agent in Iran during the 1970s. The general, Manucher Hashemi, was was former head of the Iranian intelligence agency's counterespionage division, told Shackley that Ghorbanifar's contacts in Iran were "fantastic." 

But the CIA considered Ghorbanifar unreliable, and the State Department did not respond to a memo submitted by Shackley in November 1984 about Ghorbanifar's offer to ransom the hostages.Shackley told the Tower Commission that in June 1985 he gave a report on Ghorbanifar to NSC consultant Michael Ledeen who passed it to North. 

Profits generated by arms sales through Ghorbanifar were fed into the accounts of Stanford Technology and Trading Group International, where Shackley was hired later by Secord, who used the corporations to resupply the contras. Secord told the congressional committees he began working with Stanford in the fall of 1983, and he reportedly hired Shackley for Stanford shortly thereafter. 

Shackley was named as a silent partner along with Secord in the business of Edwin Wilson, a former CIA agent who in 1983 was found to have violated arms export laws by selling explosives to Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi. 

Deputy CIA director during the Ford administration, Shackley is now the object of a civil suit that claims he has participated in numerous drug trafficking operations, assassinations and money laundering over the past 28 years. 

Thomas Clines, a former CIA official who worked closely with Oliver North on both Iranian arms sales and arms shipments to the contras, could explain aspects of North's resupply network which have not been laid out for the committee. 

Clines was reported to be working in July 1985 with the Stanford group, where Secord hired him. Clines had previously worked with Secord in the Egyptian American Transportation Services Corp., which pleaded guilty in 1983 to overcharging the U.S. government by $8 million. 

A key figure in the resupply operation at Ilopongo air base in El Salvador, Felix Rodriguez, testified that he quit the operation after he found that Clines and Secord were making large profits from arms sales to the contras. Rodriguez, who worked under Clines as a CIA agent sent into Cuba in the early 1960s, said he was morally repelled by Cline's partnership with Edwin Wilson. 

Although the congressmen on the Iran-contra committees said they were eager to question Clines, independent counsel Lawrence Walsh asked the committees not to grant Clines immunity in order to compel his testimony. Several witnesses, such as North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter, appeared before the committees only under the agreement that their testimony could not be used against them in a court of law. 

Michael Ledeen, a conservative journalist who served as consultant on terrorism to the National Security Council, could explain how Ghorbanifar was chosen as the initial middleman for arms sales to Iran. 

Ledeen told the Tower Commission that in June 1985 Shackley gave him a copy of the memo on Shackley's meeting wit Ghorbanifar which the State Department had ignored. Ledeen claims he passed the memo on to North, but that Ghorbanifar was not brought into NSC plans until November 1985, when Israeli officials proposed it to Robert McFarlane. 

But independent sources indicate that meetings of U.S. officials with Ghorbanifar were a U.S. initiative and began significantly earlier than either Ledeen or North has publicly said. Two British arms dealers recently said they met with North, Shackley and Ghorbanifar in November 1984 in an effort to arrange arms sales to Iran. And Israeli officials claim Ledeen proposed the idea of dealing with Ghorbanifar to Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres in April 1985. 

Donald Gregg, national security adviser to Vice President George Bush, could shed light on Bush's knowledge of the contra resupply effort. In January 1985 Gregg introduced Bush to Felix Rodriguez, who formerly served under Gregg in the CIA in Vietnam. Rodriguez testified that after Gregg introduced him to high U.S. officials he was hired by the Salvadoran air force as liaison to Americans resupplying the contras, and helped manage the resupply effort from Ilopango air base. 

Bush has repeatedly denied having any discussions with Rodriguez about the contra resupply operation. But documents just released by the Iran-contra committees indicate that Bush may have had such discussions. An April 16, 1986, schedule proposal and an April 30, 1986, briefing memo prepared by Bush's office both indicated that briefing the vice president on the "resupply of the contras" was one purpose of a Rodriguez-Bush meeting. 

Gregg and another Bush assistant, Samuel Watson, have denied that the contras were mentioned in the meeting the two documents referred to. John Singlaub, a major figure in the resupply operation in El Salvador, said in a September 1986 memo to North that Rodriguez had "daily contact" with Bush's office. 

The depositions of Gregg and Watson failed to examine which U.S. officials placed Rodriguez in his position in El Salvador. Rodriguez testified to the committees that he met with North on Dec. 21, 1984, the same day he first told Gregg of his interest in going to El Salvador. Rodriguez told Gregg and North he wanted to teach helicopter tactics used in Vietnam to the Salvadoran army, which is battling a strong insurgency. "North agreed to support my efforts," Rodriguez said. 

According to Bush's office, at the January 1985 meeting Rodriguez only wanted to tell the vice president of his desire to work against the Salvadoran insurgency, and did not mention the contras. Bush has repeatedly denied ever discussing the contras with Rodriguez. 

Gregg told select committee counsels last May that Rodriguez was not recruited for the resupply network until North sent Rodriguez a letter in September 1985. The Bush aide said Rodriguez told him about the letter in mid-December 1986, but that Gregg had forgotten about it until he found a note in a suit pocket in April. 

Oliver Revell, FBI executive assistant director, could explain his role in halting an FBI investigation relating to the contra resupply operation. 

Then-FBI Director William Webster told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last April that North called Revell three days after the downing of a Southern Air Transport (SAT) plane in Nicaragua last Oct 5. FBI agents had visited the Miami SAT office about the plane Oct. 4. 

North, who knew Revell from the Operations Sub-Group, an intergovernmental commission for counterterrorism activities, called Revell to express concern that FBI agents investigating SAT might disclose information relating to hostage negotiations with Iran, in which SAT was also involved. 

Revell contacted the Miami field office and ascertained the nature of the investigation, Webster told the committees. On Oct. 30 Poindexter asked Attorney General Edwin Meese to ask the FBI to shut down the SAT investigation for 10 days. Although Webster said he agreed to a 10-day delay, the investigation did not get permission to continue until Nov. 20, when Associate Attorney General Stephen Trott called Revell. But the investigation did not resume until Nov. 26, the Justice Department explained, because of "bureaucratic delays."