Tower Commission

Commissioned on November 26, 1986 by American President Ronald Reagan, the Tower Commission was in response to the Iran Contra scandal. Taking effect on December 1, Reagan appointed Republican and former Senator John Tower of Texas, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft.

The commission's report "held Reagan accountable for a lax managerial style and aloofness from policy detail."

Oliver North, John Poindexter, Caspar Weinberger, and others were also implicated.

A major result of the Tower Commission was the consensus that Reagan should have listened to his National Security Advisor more, thereby placing more power in the hands of that chair. The National Security Advisor was to be seen as an "honest broker" and not someone who would use his position to further his political agenda.

Summarised, the main findings showed that "Using the Contras as a front, and against international law, and US law, weapons were sold, using Israel as intermediaries, to Iran, during the brutal Iran-Iraq war. The US was also supplying weapons to Iraq, including ingredients for nerve gas, mustard gas and other chemical weapons."

Further reading

See Chapter 5, "The Politics of Scandal: The Tower Commission and Iran-Contra," in Kenneth Kitts, *Presidential Commissions and National Security (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2006). The Great War for Civilisation, The Conquest of the Middle East; Robert Fisk