Senate Panel Releases Iraq Report; GOP Calls it Partisan Politics
CQ TODAY MIDDAY UPDATE
June 11, 2008 – 11:08 a.m.
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=3&docID=cqmidday-000002889538
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.
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