Word: aspine
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Last week the Administration thought it had found a prime example of loose tongues in Congress: it denounced the disclosure by Democrat Les Aspin, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, that the first Kuwaiti tankers to fly the U.S. flag would take to sea this Wednesday. Aspin replied sharply that this detail had not been classified and that Senate Republican Leader Robert Dole had also mentioned it. Moreover, both Aspin and Dole had been briefed by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Admiral William Crowe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who made no claim that the date of the first...
...however, gave a more disturbing assessment, calling the threat of some Iranian response "quite high." This prompted House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin to complain that the Administration clearly had not figured out what it was getting into. There are suspicions that Iran has set up mines in the waters of Kuwait's primary oil port at Al-Ahmadi. Should a ship hit one of them, said Aspin, it would be "something on which there are no Iranian fingerprints." Thus the U.S. would be less able to retaliate. Another threat is the Chinese-made Silkworm missiles that Iran...
That feature of the plan has raised old worries at home and abroad. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Congressman Les Aspin, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, have resurrected the fear that the zero option may be decoupling. Some Europeans are concerned that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and other leaders have invested so much political capital in forcing through the deployments despite domestic opposition that it would be awkward for them now to feign enthusiasm for the total removal of the missiles...
Senators needed only to look across the Capitol for an example of the chaos that can erupt when seniority is ignored. In a rare coup, Wisconsin Democrat Les Aspin two years ago seized the chair of the House Armed Services Committee from Illinois' Melvin Price, then 80. Without the seniority shield, Aspin was himself toppled this year by his party's caucus. He had alienated liberals by supporting the MX missile and the contras, and offended many by his general tactlessness (he likened former Speaker Tip O'Neill to a "beached whale"). After two weeks of frenzied campaigning...
...Massachusetts firm beats out the Beretta for this contract, the Army would wind up with two incompatible handguns. "It's absolutely ridiculous," contends an aide to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin. "It's the rawest of pork...