In July, the
Boston Globe reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee' investigation of the administration's use of intelligence in the run up to war in Iraq was stalled. It quotes Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), chairman of the committee:
Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said in February that the committee's investigation of the administration's use of intelligence is ''on the back burner," and said in April that other issues have more urgent claims on the committee's attention.
Roll Call:Roberts launched a defense of his record on the Senate floor, saying his committee staff has been exploring questions raised by Democrats since May of this year and that his staff informed Intelligence ranking member Jay Rockefeller's (D-W.Va.) staff on Monday that the investigation would begin in earnest next Tuesday.
"Staff has been working on this very diligently," Roberts said.
As a result of the action yesterday, the Republican leadership in the Senate has agreed to report on November 14, from three Republicans and three Democrats, the status of the investigation. One of the places the renewed investigation should begin is where the first investigation left off. From the
National Journal:
Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources.
Among the White House materials withheld from the committee were Libby-authored passages in drafts of a speech that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered to the United Nations in February 2003 to argue the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq, according to congressional and administration sources. The withheld documents also included intelligence data that Cheney's office -- and Libby in particular -- pushed to be included in Powell's speech, the sources said.
