Posted on 03/12/2004 12:30:47 PM PST by Pikamax
Senator: Report on Iraq Intelligence 'Damning' Fri Mar 12, 2004 03:14 PM ET
By Tabassum Zakaria WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report about prewar intelligence on Iraq will be "tough and damning" and spread the blame around, a senior Republican senator said on Friday.
"It will be damning of some of the intelligence. I think it's going to be highly critical, it will be critical of a lot of different programs and people," said Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, third-ranking in the Senate Republican leadership.
The blame spreads over Democratic and Republican administrations, intelligence agencies and Congress, he said. "Nobody is without blame."
The report is expected to be issued this spring, possibly in April.
Kyl's comments came in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations aimed at countering harsh criticism of the Republican administration by Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, a week earlier to the same group.
Kennedy's case that the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence to Congress and the public to go to war against Iraq was "long on innuendo and very short on facts," Kyl said.
Administration officials had based their comments about Iraq on intelligence assessments, he said. "They did not ... distort, mislead, or misrepresent what the intelligence community said."
U.S. intelligence reports before the war said Iraq had biological and chemical weapons and was developing a nuclear weapon, but since the U.S.-led invasion last year no such banned weapons have been found.
KEY ELECTION ISSUE
Democrats say the Republican White House exaggerated the threat from Iraq to gather support for the war. Republicans say it is too early to draw conclusions because the hunt for weapons of mass destruction has not ended and the administration's comments were based on assessments by the intelligence agencies.
It has become a hot-button political issue ahead of the presidential election in November.
Kennedy, who has taken a high-profile role in the presidential campaign of fellow Massachusetts Democrat Sen. John Kerry, in last week's speech accused Republican President Bush of exaggerating the threat posed by Iraq for political gain.
"That charge, if more than just over-the-top bluster, would be close to an allegation of treason -- suggesting that the president deliberately put our young men and women in harm's way for no purpose other than politics," Kyl said.
"Such a charge would not only sap the morale of the troops who are fighting even now, it would undercut our entire position on the war on terror generally and in Iraq specifically," Kyl said.
Kyl, a former member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said congressional oversight of spy agencies was "not very good" because lawmakers serve on several committees and have limited staff so cannot devote full attention to one issue.
"You would literally have to spend all of your time on this to really be able to know what kind of questions to ask, and because you don't have personal staff you get fed the questions," Kyl said.
"I mean it is not a good oversight set up, it is not calculated to really provide oversight, and I suspect that the intelligence agencies, including the CIA, like it that way a whole lot," he said.
That's true.
This article is about a report concerning pre-war intelligence with respect to Iraq.
Different subject.
(And you don't really think that a new administration sweeps out all the scumbags from the old administration, do you? If so, why is there civil service?)
Just as we ought not convene investigations for political reasons, we ought not avoid needed investigations for political reasons. IF our intelligence (and that of the whole world, apparently) was problematic, we need to find out what the problems are, where weaknesses are, and how to fix it.
The problem ISN'T that this is being investigated. The problem is that the media will only trumpet problems which point at Bush.
Well, I think, in all honesty, I am.
And I think dead was watching TV.
Dead?
Dan
And it was the administration who finally did something about it, while the previous one did nothing serious about it.
By the way George Bush is TAKING responsibility for 911. He has recognized the attack as an act of WAR and is replying in kind. But to PRIMARILY BLAME him for 911 because he was the POTUS at the time of the attack is not to gauge the whole truth.
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