Bush Questions Aide on Link to Contras

WASHINGTON -- Vice President George Bush is calling his top national security aide to account for all contacts with a former CIA employe who has been described as a coordinator of supply flights for Nicaraguan rebels.

The aide, Donald P. Gregg, disclosed over the weekend that he arranged a meeting in August between Felix Rodriguez, a former associate of his at the CIA, and U.S. officials after Rodriguez expressed concern that supplies to the Contra rebels were moving too slowly.

The disclosure was the first time Bush's staff had been linked with Rodriguez in connection with the private supply flights, which came during a congressional ban on U.S. military aid to the Nicaraguan rebels.

Bush's press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, said Sunday that Gregg first told the vice president about the August meeting last week.

"Gregg apparently had taken it upon himself to put Felix in touch with various people," Fitzwater said. "He had not previously told the vice president... I think the vice president feels that he should have been told.

"At this point there is no indication of wrongdoing, but we sure want to find out all the facts," Fitzwater said.

He said the report was to be on the vice president's desk yesterday and, after review, to the appropriate congressional committees and to a special counsel expected to be appointed soon to look into Iranian arms sales and profits from them being diverted to the Contras.

Gregg declined comment beyond saying, "I suppose everybody could think of additional questions, but there is nothing more to add."

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported in yesterday's editions that the CIA has secretly given Iraq detailed information to assist Iraqi bombing raids on Iran's oil terminals and power plants in the war between the two countries.

The Post quoted unidentified sources as saying the United States has supplied the intelligence, including data from U.S. satellite reconnaissance photography, to Iraq for nearly two years. During the same period, the Reagan administration was covertly selling arms to Iran.

The Post also quoted sources as saying CIA Director William Casey met in October and again in November with senior Iraqi officials to make sure an improved communications link was functioning and to encourage more attacks on Iranian installations.

White House spokesman Peter Roussel said Sunday night he would have no comment on the report. "We don't comment on intelligence matters," he said.

Disclosure of the contact between Bush's aide and Rodriquez came in weekend interviews with The New York Time and The Washington Post.

Fitzwater said the arrangement between Gregg and Rodriguez had nothing to do with the diversion to the rebels of profits from secret U.S. sales of arms to Iran. Both Bush and President Reagan have said they knew nothing about the diversion until it was disclosed last month by Attorney General Edwin Meese III.