CQ TODAY MIDDAY UPDATE
June 11, 2008 – 11:08 a.m.
Senate Panel Releases Iraq Report; GOP Calls it Partisan Politics
Bush administration officials, in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, made several public statements about the danger of Saddam Hussein’s regime that were contradicted by available intelligence at the time, according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report released Thursday.
The panel’s release of the report — along with a second that concludes Pentagon officials held “inappropriate” clandestine meetings with Iranians in Rome and Paris without informing the intelligence community — officially ends the committee’s acrimonious four-year investigation into prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Democrats and Republicans exchanged fire over the reports immediately upon their release. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., highlighted the documents in a news release; Republicans said Democrats were trying to “score election-year points.” The release of the reports also deepened partisan tensions on the Intelligence panel, already high over a rewrite of foreign intelligence surveillance law.
“Unfortunately, our committee has concluded that the administration made significant claims that were not supported by the intelligence,” Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV , D-W.Va., said. “In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent.”
Two Republicans, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, joined Democrats in voting 10-5 for the reports during committee deliberation. But other panel Republicans accused Democrats of politicizing the reports.
The Iraq report “is a great disappointment to us and an unfortunate commentary on the political nature of intelligence oversight in the Congress today,” a group of Republican panelists led by vice-chairman Christopher S. Bond of Missouri wrote in the minority views section of the “public statements” report.
The report concluded that Bush administration officials made numerous claims that were contradicted by available intelligence, including the alleged connections between Iraq and al Qaeda and Saddam’s desire to share weapons of mass destruction with terrorist groups.
Comments
The irony is that Senator Rockefeller and company (that is, the Democratic establishment) were making STRONGER claims about Saddam and his murderous regime than President Bush did before we went to war in 2003. Now that the Democrat "nutbase" has spoken, Rockefeller and company have now sent all their pro-war and anti-Saddam comments down the memory hole. What Rockefeller doesn't get is that such Democratic pro-war and anti-Saddam comments can be readily discovered on Al Gore's Internet. That Rockefeller and company are hypocrites is bad enough. What is worse is that their legislative efforts for the last two years have been to oppose the surge, which is clearly working, and to promote defeatism and withdrawal. The U-Tube comments of a certain Pennsylvania congressman demonstrate the fact that Democrats persuaded American voters to support the Democratic anti-war platform in 2006 when Democrats did NOT mean to keep their word to end the war. We have come a long way in our country when the leaders of a major political party would rather play politics than to own up to their own responsibility and involvement in the liberation of the Iraqi people from Saddam the Murderer. Instead, we hear cheap and demonstrably false rhetoric about "oil for blood" and "Bush lied." Democrats have much to answer for, but the MSM is too busy worshipping at the shrine of Saint Obama to pay any attention. Sad . . . but true!
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