President Bush Saturday angrily accused Democrats of wasting millions of dollars on election-year political "witch hunts" aimed at linking him with aiding Iran and Iraq.
A House committee Friday asked Bush to order top officials to cooperate with its probe of administration policy geared toward wooing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's support in the days before the gulf war."I think it's purely political," Bush said during a news conference on the final day of the U.N.-sponsored Earth Summit.
"I think it is a pure political inquest, and we have complied fully," Bush told reporters, showing public frustration with what he said was a bid by some Democrats who opposed the gulf war to undercut the public support for that confrontation.
"I must say that it smells political to me," Bush said. "I see these and other hearings up there that have cost the taxpayers millions."
Congress also has been investigating long-simmering suspicions that Bush played a role in trying to delay former President Jimmy Carter's efforts to free American hostages in Iraq during the 1980 presidential campaign.
Republicans had long feared a so-called "October Surprise" that might scuttle efforts to defeat Carter with a ticket of Ronald Reagan as president and Bush as his vice president.
At least one former Carter administration official has suggested that Bush secretly held a meeting in Paris with an Iranian official to delay the release of the hostages - a charge Bush has vigorously denied.
"Why the Congress keeps spending the taxpayers' monies on these witch hunts, I do not know," Bush said. "I'm a little sick of it, but there's not a heck of a lot I can do about it," he said.