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No evidence of pressure on Iraq data,
Senator says
7.11.2005
BY Eric Lichtblau
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WASHINGTON, Nov.
6 - With Democrats stepping up their attacks over
prewar intelligence on Iraq, the Republican leader
of the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Sunday
that the panel's initial work had found no evidence
of "political manipulation or pressure" in the use
of such intelligence.
This week the committee expects to begin circulating
among its members draft reports on the question of
whether the administration manipulated or distorted
intelligence on Iraq in making its case for war,
said the chairman, Pat Roberts of Kansas.
Mr. Roberts did not say what the draft reports would
conclude. But he did make clear that past work by
his committee and other commissions did not point to
any evidence that made him believe that intelligence
had been distorted.
As part of a report released last year by his
committee that found widespread intelligence
failures on Iraq's weapons capabilities, "we
interviewed over 250 analysts and we specifically
asked them: 'Was there any political manipulation or
pressure?' Answer: 'No,' " Mr. Roberts said on "Face
the Nation" on CBS.
Studies by the independent Robb-Silberman
commission, appointed by the president, as well as
the similar Butler commission in Britain reached the
"same conclusion," said Mr. Roberts, who has been a
staunch supporter of the administration's policies
on Iraq.
Democrats have accused the Republicans - and Mr.
Roberts in particular - of dragging their feet on
the Intelligence Committee's study, begun some 20
months ago. Frustration over the pace of the inquiry
led Senate Democratic leaders to invoke a rare
procedural rule last week, sending the Senate into a
special closed session.
Democrats said they had been driven to act by the
indictment of I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President
Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, on charges of
obstruction and perjury, charges that were related
to the disclosure of the name of a Central
Intelligence Agency operative whose husband had been
a vocal critic of prewar intelligence.
In addition, articles published Sunday in The New
York Times and The Washington Post showed that
Defense Department intelligence analysts warned in
February 2002 that a top member of Al Qaeda was a
likely fabricator, months before the Bush
administration began to use his statements as a
foundation for its claims that Iraq had trained
Qaeda members in the use of biological and chemical
weapons.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the
ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said
Sunday of the reports: "Once again, we have another
important example of where the administration was
warned that information was questionable, yet they
turned around and presented it as fact to the
American people.
"This most recent example underscores just how
important it is that the Senate Intelligence
Committee get to the bottom of whether this
administration knowingly misrepresented intelligence
in making their case for war," he said.
The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, asked on
Sunday about the articles on the Qaeda fabricator,
did not address the issue specifically but said that
both Republicans and Democrats, including those in
the Clinton administration, "came to the same
conclusion, that Saddam Hussein was a threat and a
threat that needed to be addressed."
Pointing to the findings of the Robb-Silberman
commission, he said that "we've taken steps to make
sure that we have the best possible intelligence"
and that "we are acting to address the problems."
Democrats have sought to link Mr. Libby's
prosecution to the use of intelligence on Iraq, and
on Sunday they stepped up calls for greater
accountability at the White House for anyone
implicated in the Libby case.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of
Massachusetts, said on "Meet the Press" on NBC that
Karl Rove, the senior presidential adviser, "should
leave" the White House because he was found to have
had discussions with reporters about the C.I.A.
operative, Valerie Wilson. And even some Republicans
suggested that a housecleaning was in order.
"The president should be, in my opinion, reviewing
and analyzing and putting some deep perspective into
who's around him at the White House," said Senator
Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, on "This Week"
on ABC. "And if I was the president, I think I'd
want to enlarge and widen that group, and start
making some serious review and inventory of what has
happened in the last five years that's gotten him
into so much trouble."
www.nytimes.com
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