Iraqi Weapons Investigation Game Plan
By Denise Best | Related entries in General Politics, In The NewsA hearing game plan is being devised by the Dems on the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction investigation.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence yesterday worked out a tentative arrangement for pursuing its inquiry into how the Bush administration publicly portrayed the intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, with Democrats saying they expected some officials to be called to testify before the review is completed.
“There is a new resolution of the way we are going,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said yesterday after the committee met in closed session for 90 minutes. Feinstein is one of six committee members charged with resolving differences over how to proceed with the “phase two” inquiry.
How do the Dems plan on proceeding?
“We want to look at all the intelligence community work and see how it was used,” Feinstein said. Under the original plan of Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the process was to have been simpler: Statements were to be analyzed to see only if there was intelligence that substantiated them, without looking at contrary intelligence.
One example of the work ahead, Feinstein said, would be analyzing President Bush’s statement in his 2003 State of the Union address saying the British government had learned that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa.
How many past war time Presidents had their State of the Union speeches evaluated in such a manner?
I wonder how LBJ’s speeches lined up in regards to intelligence substantiating the Vietnam war?
Yesterday, senators were given classified staff drafts of two other sections of what will be a five-part phase two study. One was to compare the prewar assessments of Iraq’s weapons programs, and its relations with al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, to what was found on both subjects after the war. The second was to compare prewar assessments of what postwar Iraq would look like with the reality that has emerged.
The committee is not scheduled to meet again until next week. After that, sessions will be held as needed, with members and staff not expecting to be finished until next year.
Hey, just in time for the 2006 elections!?
Timing sure can be everything!
P.S. Yes, if the parties in this situation were reversed, I would be criticizing the Republicans just as loudly – if they were to chose the same tactics as the Democrats are employing.
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November 10th, 2005 at 1:05 pm
“P.S. Yes, if the parties in this situation were reversed, I would be criticizing the Republicans just as loudly – if they were to chose the same tactics as the Democrats are employing.”
Well, there are 8 Republicans and 7 Democrats on the committee, so you can’t just pass this off on the Democrats and say it is all about politics.
November 10th, 2005 at 1:44 pm
Of the 6 members assigned to resolve differences over Phase II, 3 are Republicans, 3 are Democrats.
November 10th, 2005 at 6:56 pm
Denise:
I’m sorry, I don’t get your point. Is the Congress not allowed to investigate how we got into war? Congress is granted the war-making power, and has control of budgeting for the war. Is this somehow not their business? As for the timing, the GOP could have handled this earlier, they refused to because they were afraid of the impact on the 2004 election.
November 10th, 2005 at 9:12 pm
Socks Clinton,
The issue isn’t as much whether there are an even number of Republicans and Democrats, rather it is the path and manner in which the investigation can be taken.
How far is too far? We’re apparently going to find out over the next year or so.
Is examining each word of past State of the Union addresses relevent?
Shouldn’t the emphasis be upon current and future policy versus getting mired down to the degree of detail which is being proposed.
November 10th, 2005 at 9:22 pm
Michael,
The point is the extent to which the examination will be conducted – is it reasonable and has this degree of scrutiny been applied to previous administrations? Should it be?
Can the respective representatives, both Republicans and Democrats, truly put all the factors together just as they were prior to the Iraqi War?
Hindsight is 20/20 and it’s an easy call made after the events have occurred and been analyzed ad nauseum.
How can this investigation really go to the lengths that are being proposed and deliver a fair assessment?
What questioning should members of Congress have conducted before giving their approval for moving forward with the plans for war in Iraq.
Is the same degree of scrutiny going to be applied to members of Congress on their words, thoughts, actions, and what should have been done at that time?
November 10th, 2005 at 9:44 pm
I thought that your point was that this is some political show, and the timing was politically motivated, and the Democrats were at fault. My point was just that the Democrats clearly have no more control over this than the Republicans.
As for timing, this has been going on for 20 months, so I don’t know how much longer you think that they should wait. Michael Reynolds (above) has a point that this could have been done earlier, but I think that you and every Republican would just as soon put it off as long as possible. Since elections happen every two years I am having difficulty imagining what time table would satisfy you. It has been needlessly delayed by now anyway.
The two-phase plan was approved by all 15 Senate Intelligence members, and the goal of the second stage is to examine the uses of the intelligence. The State of the Union is a big speech and if the administration used discredited intelligence in the speech to exaggerate the threat of Saddam, then that is directly relevant to the goal of the plan. It that did happen, it would be important to know, since it could help the country better evaluate if we are being mislead in the future. If we weren’t mislead, then we will know that the uses of the intelligence were fine, and Bush will be cleared.
No one is suggesting that the government should sacrifice the future for this investigation. The government is capable of focusing on more than one item of business at a time. This was a huge intelligence failure, and it should have been examined before now. I hope that the intelligence committee does a comprehensive job.
November 10th, 2005 at 10:09 pm
Socks,
Yes, a comprehensive job certainly should be done by the committee members with the future in mind.
Problem is there seems to be more political ax grinding in mind than an altruistic endeavor to determine the truth.
Much of this case is being based and driven by motivation and a belief that the issues relating to intelligence were entirely black and white – no shades of gray whatsoever.
No doubt, no uncertainty about the situation at that time is being portrayed – nope, “Bush lied, people died,” is what the focus has been by the media and the Democrats with a feeding frenzy-like fervor.
With the degree of examination being proposed, short of a time machine being employed, how can the members put events leading up to the war in the same context as then and not be prejudiced by subsequent events?
August 8th, 2006 at 3:10 am
Good job.