Senate Intel Comm Report Comes Far Too Late
The Senate Intelligence Committee's report on Bush/Cheney's lies about Saddam Hussein and Iraq that provided the prevaricating foundation for the Iraq invasion and occupation comes far too late. The terrible damage has been done.
From the NYTimes: "In a report long delayed by partisan squabbling, the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday accused President Bush and Vice President Cheney of taking the country to war in Iraq by exaggerating evidence of links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda in the emotional aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
“ 'The president and his advisers undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the attacks to use the war against Al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein,' Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, the committee’s Democratic chairman, said in a statement accompanying the 171-page report.
"The committee’s report cited some instances in which public statements by senior administration officials were not supported by the intelligence available at the time, such as suggestions that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda were operating in a kind of partnership, that the Baghdad regime had provided the terrorist network with weapons training, and that one of the Sept. 11 hijackers had met an Iraqi intelligence operative in Prague in 2001.
"But the report found that on several key issues, including Iraq’s alleged nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, public statements from Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and other top officials before the war were generally “substantiated” by the best estimates of the intelligence agencies, though the statements did not always reflect the agencies’ uncertainty about the evidence. All the weapons claims were disproved after invading troops found no unconventional arsenal and little effort to build one."
"In order to complete that initial 2004 report, committee members agreed to put off several of the more politically volatile topics. Sen. Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who was then chairman, nonetheless declared nearly four years ago that the phase two effort was 'a priority. I made my commitment and it will get done.'
"But a lengthy standoff ensued. Democrats accused Republicans of dodging their demands to complete the inquiry in order to protect the Bush administration from damaging revelations. Republicans insisted that they were not dragging their feet and asserted that the findings might well turn out to embarrass Congressional Democrats.
"In May 2007, the committee, now led by Democrats, put out a third part of the phase two review, this one examining pre-war predictions by the intelligence agencies about post-war Iraq.
"But it would take another year to complete the most delicate part of the planned inquiry, the look at pre-war public statements by executive branch officials." However, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WVA) is so hypocritical because he voted FOR the Iraq War Resolution.
Also the mulitmillionaire, Rockefeller and this committee's FISA bill, inexplicably brought to the floor by clueless Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) last year, contains retroactive immunity for telecoms.
Reid controls what bills come to the floor and as TPM Muckraker wrote: "Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is taking an enormous amount of criticism from the left -- see Glenn Greenwald and Christy Hardin Smith, for starters -- for putting the Senate intelligence committee's version of the surveillance bill on the floor as the "base text" for a vote on Monday and offering the Senate Judiciary Committee's version as a standing amendment. In a nutshell, Judiciary's version doesn't provide retroactive telecom immunity and offers more civil-liberties protections.
Reid is not an effective Democratic leader, but neither is Rockefeller.
Jay Rockefeller's blatant hypocrisy and arrogance obliterates any ex post facto importance this report might have had. And, like many of his colleagues in the Capitol Hill 100 club, he has no shame, nor apologies.
Rockefeller is a pot calling the Bush/Cheney kettle black.
From the NYTimes: "In a report long delayed by partisan squabbling, the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday accused President Bush and Vice President Cheney of taking the country to war in Iraq by exaggerating evidence of links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda in the emotional aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
“ 'The president and his advisers undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the attacks to use the war against Al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein,' Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, the committee’s Democratic chairman, said in a statement accompanying the 171-page report.
"The committee’s report cited some instances in which public statements by senior administration officials were not supported by the intelligence available at the time, such as suggestions that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda were operating in a kind of partnership, that the Baghdad regime had provided the terrorist network with weapons training, and that one of the Sept. 11 hijackers had met an Iraqi intelligence operative in Prague in 2001.
"But the report found that on several key issues, including Iraq’s alleged nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, public statements from Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and other top officials before the war were generally “substantiated” by the best estimates of the intelligence agencies, though the statements did not always reflect the agencies’ uncertainty about the evidence. All the weapons claims were disproved after invading troops found no unconventional arsenal and little effort to build one."
"In order to complete that initial 2004 report, committee members agreed to put off several of the more politically volatile topics. Sen. Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who was then chairman, nonetheless declared nearly four years ago that the phase two effort was 'a priority. I made my commitment and it will get done.'
"But a lengthy standoff ensued. Democrats accused Republicans of dodging their demands to complete the inquiry in order to protect the Bush administration from damaging revelations. Republicans insisted that they were not dragging their feet and asserted that the findings might well turn out to embarrass Congressional Democrats.
"In May 2007, the committee, now led by Democrats, put out a third part of the phase two review, this one examining pre-war predictions by the intelligence agencies about post-war Iraq.
"But it would take another year to complete the most delicate part of the planned inquiry, the look at pre-war public statements by executive branch officials." However, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WVA) is so hypocritical because he voted FOR the Iraq War Resolution.
Also the mulitmillionaire, Rockefeller and this committee's FISA bill, inexplicably brought to the floor by clueless Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) last year, contains retroactive immunity for telecoms.
Reid controls what bills come to the floor and as TPM Muckraker wrote: "Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is taking an enormous amount of criticism from the left -- see Glenn Greenwald and Christy Hardin Smith, for starters -- for putting the Senate intelligence committee's version of the surveillance bill on the floor as the "base text" for a vote on Monday and offering the Senate Judiciary Committee's version as a standing amendment. In a nutshell, Judiciary's version doesn't provide retroactive telecom immunity and offers more civil-liberties protections.
Reid is not an effective Democratic leader, but neither is Rockefeller.
Jay Rockefeller's blatant hypocrisy and arrogance obliterates any ex post facto importance this report might have had. And, like many of his colleagues in the Capitol Hill 100 club, he has no shame, nor apologies.
Rockefeller is a pot calling the Bush/Cheney kettle black.
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