Report on Prewar Intelligence Lagging [Barfer]

Washington Post ^ | July 30, 2006 | Dafna Linzer

[ncountylee]

When angry Democrats briefly shut down the Senate last year to protest the slow pace of a congressional investigation into prewar intelligence on Iraq, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) claimed a rare victory.

Republicans called it a stunt but promised to quickly wrap up the inquiry. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which is overseeing the investigation, said his report was near completion and there was no need for the fuss.

That was nine months ago.

The Republican-led committee, which agreed in February 2004 to write the report, has yet to complete its work. Just two of five planned sections of the committee's findings are fully drafted and ready to be voted on by members, according to Democratic and Republican staffers. Committee sources involved with the report, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they are working hard to complete it. But disputing Roberts, they said they had started almost from scratch in November after Democrats staged their protest.

Roberts spokeswoman Sarah Ross Little said the slow pace is partially the result of Roberts's desire to give members a chance for input. She said Roberts will make public the two completed sections "when they are approved by the committee and have been declassified," rather than wait for the other three to be done, as well. If the sections are not approved by the committee next week, they will have to wait until members return from recess in September.

[ncountylee]

The Washington Post not satisfied with "reporting" DNC talking points, is now developing them and directing the DNC.

[Ingtar]

The Dims are delaying it in hopes of becoming the majority of the committee and turning it into another attack.

[Dilbert56]

Last time this issue was raised Chairman Roberts pointed out that the Dimocrats on the committee hadn't provided their feedback yet. The ball was in their court. How much do you want to bet that they're trying to drag it out to influence the November elections?

[MikeA]

And someone please post the animation of the guy beating the dead horse if you please.

[My2Cents]

Pre-war intelligence said Saddam had WMDs. The Iraq Survey Group looked for WMDs within Iraq, but didn't look at every suspected site before filing its final report, and certainly wasn't able to follow-up on reports that Saddam had moved the bulks of his WMDs to Syria. Any congressional investigation into "pre-war intelligence" should acknowledge that such intelligence on WMDs has never been conclusively refuted or affirmed.

[avacado]

My understanding is that the Republicans want to add in quotes from Democrats about them saying Iraq had WMD and that the Democrats are squealing like stuck pigs and do not want the quotes to be allowed. The Democrats only want to allow Bush Admin quotes about WMD.

[paddles]

"Daffy Who" wrote this?

[Shermy]

It aims to validate Democratic talking points, not that they didn't believe there were WMDs, but they didn't like the way the Bush admin. sold it.

[Dilbert56]

This should be a rather straightforward exercise. List every significant statement about Iraq made by the run up to the war. Then challenge the White House to cite the supporting documentation. It will be easier than it sounds. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report detailed the process for getting information like that into a Presidential speech. The famous 16 words went through at least a half-dozen reviews before the President ever said them. At one point he was clear to cite an estimate as to the tonnage being sought.

BTW, you hear lots of Dims saying the Administration "pressured" the intelligence community to distort their reports. This is absurd on its face and not supported by the facts. First, how much pressure do you have to put on someone to say the same things he's been saying for years? Secondly, David Kay's investigation, the Blue Ribbin Panel's investigation and the SSCI investigation all went to great lengths to solicit example of political pressure being applied. They came up empty. As Dr. Kay said, he wished the problem was political pressure because we know how to fix that.