Posted on 06/20/2006 8:50:42 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
CNSNews.com) - Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid says he wants to make sure the President Bush can't mislead the nation on Iran the way Bush supposedly misled Americans on the situation in Iraq.
In an effort to get Congress more involved in U.S. policy toward Iran, Reid on Monday introduced a bill called the Iran Intelligence Oversight Act.
Among other things, the bill would require President Bush to inform Congress about his objectives regarding Iran and his strategy for achieving them. It also would give Congress more "oversight" on the intelligence pertaining to Iran -- and it would require the administration to provide an unclassified summary of that intelligence to American people.
"This legislation will ensure the Congress is fully engaged in the Iran debate, and it will also push the Bush White House to develop and implement the right policy for dealing with Iran," Reid said in a press release.
"The Senate must be engaged as we move our diplomacy forward with Iran," Reid said. "We must take seriously our responsibility to insist on a thorough review of the facts, a full debate of the threat, and full consultation as events move forward."
(According to Reid, the U.S. effort to halt Iran's nuclear program has been delayed and complicated by the Bush administration's failures in Iraq.)
Reid said his proposed legislation would bring the "rigorous oversight necessary to hold the administration accountable for its rhetoric, and its all too frequent tendency to spin and distort the facts."
He said the bill would require the Bush administration to give Congress and the American people "solid answers" to three questions, as follows:
-- First, what is the judgment of the government's professional intelligence analysts about the threat of Iran, and what tools are most likely to influence the Iranians to change their ways?
-- Second, what are the president's policy objectives with Iran, and what is his strategy for achieving these objectives?
-- Third, this legislation asks the question -- what is the process for making sure that senior Administration officials don't publicly mischaracterize the evidence and the challenge of Iran?
"Much of what we heard from the administration in the run-up to Iraq about mushroom clouds, yellow cake, and uranium tubes turned out to be overstated or based on intelligence that was known to be suspect," Reid said. "With my legislation in place, and with vigilance from Congress, we will be one step closer to ensuring this kind of misleading does not happen regarding the threat posed by Iran."
Reid also complained that Congress has not yet been briefed on the deal offered to Iran a few weeks ago.
"The Iranians have been briefed. The Europeans have been briefed. The Russians and Chinese have been briefed. But not the United States Senate. Congress needs to be in on the takeoff, not asked to board the plane for the crash landing," he said.
No fool like an old fool.
That was stupid.
Reid seems to suggest Bush will suggest Iran is working on nukes, when it is not, and then bomb the shit out of the place, because he just wants to. Whatever.
It really angers me this guy is in a leadership position in the United States Senate. Every word here reeks of vile partisanship, party before country, undermining our war effort - and undermining in advance what might need to be the next war effort. Disgusting.
ooooh, watch out, everyone! I think we just heard the latest lame dhimmocRATic motto!
In 10 years, nobody will even remember who Harry Reid was. He's an inconsequential loser.
The past several days Rush has been talking around the issue of WMDs, etc in the run up to the war in Iraq. Acts as though he knows something is about to be made public.
They get briefed, Mr Reid. You've just been too busy fundraising and muckraking to attend the meetings.
He "would require the administration to provide an unclassified summary of that intelligence to American people."
WTF is he THINKING? We just hand out knowledge of the Iranian activities to the public, because you know that'll never get back to the Iranians and they'll never figure out who gave it to us. /sarc Won't get fooled again, hell. How can you unfool a fool?
"Reid Sends Notice to Iran - 'I'm Ready to Backstab on Demand'"
U.S. Constitution, Article II Section 2:
"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States...."
Reid is symtomatic of the Buffalo Theory in practice.
Since he's slow, stupid and looking around for someone to blame, he'll always be left behind to die. If he were a buffalo, he'd be shot. That makes the herd stronger since the strength of the herd improves when its weaker members are weeded out.
This is part of bar learning re why one feels smarter after multiple beers.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
While the Democrats route a copy of the classified intellegence report to Iran by leaking it to The New York Times. Bastards.
Bush was Right! These Commies have been wrong about everything including Iraq.
Pray for W and Our Troops
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