On the November 13 edition of “Fox News Sunday,” Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D.-W.Va.), the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told host Chris Wallace, “There were only six people in the Senate who did [read the NIE], and I was one of them.” Rockefeller said he was “sure” that Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts (R.-Kan.) had also read it.
Roberts confirmed to me that he had in fact read the report. But it turns out that Reid did not.
At a November 15 press conference, I asked Reid and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.): “The Washington Post reported that six senators read that NIE in 2002 before the vote to authorize the war. Did both of you read it?” Reid at first said: “As indicated last week, Sen. [Carl] Levin [D.-Mich.] has worked very hard to make that public. Now, everyone has read it. Everyone has read it.”
But following up, I asked: “But before you voted for the war—“
Reid said: “We’re talking about six senators. The answer is, if you ask me, I didn’t read it. But I don’t know who did. But there’s a hundred senators, not six. And some members of the Intelligence Committee may have read it. I don’t know. But the fact of the matter is—you can’t escape this—the administration manipulated the evidence and the people who opposed them, like Amb. [Joseph] Wilson were taken to the woodshed.”
Key Democrats who have joined Reid in his campaign to charge the administration with misleading the country about the Iraq intelligence, also failed to read the prewar NIE on Iraq. When asked if he had read it, former presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.) said: “I got briefings. I got a personal briefing at the Pentagon.”
Asked if she had read it, likely 2008 presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.), said: “I’m not going to say anything about that. Just let the intelligence committee do their work, okay?”
To the same question, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D.-Conn.) said: “I’m not sure I did. I read a lot of intelligence information around that time, but I don’t know whether I formally read the NIE. I’d have to go back on that.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.), who wrote a letter to Bush on Sept. 13, 2002, asking for his assistance in making sure that Tenet produced the requested NIE about Iraq, said she did in fact read it before casting her vote in favor of the war.
http://elmersbro.bloghi.com/2005/11/22/harry-reid-didn-t-read-prewar-intel-report.html