Senate Closes Doors to Discuss Iraq Probe
Wednesday November 2, 2005
In a rare parlimentary maneuver, Democrats forced a closed two-hour Senate session Tuesday afternoon to discuss the investigation of intelligence prior to the Iraqi war. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said that the Senate Intelligence Committee had dragged its feet in completing the investigation, which the GOP postponed in 2004 to avoid possibly affecting the election. Yesterday, the Senate appointed a bipartisan group of six senators who will report by 14 November on the status of the investigation.
The move succeeded in shifting media attention from the Alito nomination to the war in Iraq, where US soldiers killed have passed the 2,000 mark.
According to the Boston Globe, the Senate has invoked Rule 21 to force a closed session only 53 times since 1929; most have been about security issues with the notable exception being discussions in 1999 about President Clinton's impeachment. In a closed session, doors are shut, lawmakers hand over their cellphones and pagers, and the "substance of the meeting must not be publicly discussed."
Report Postponed in 2004
Phase one of the Intelligence Committee investigation, released July 2004, focused on the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a key rationale for instigating the war. That report blamed the CIA. The second phase was supposed to examine how the White House used intelligence and if intelligence was deliberately manipulated to make the case for war. Democrats agreed to the delay, but are now crying foul, more than a year later and no report forthcoming.
Last week, Taegan Goddard's Political Wire noted that Vice President Cheney and Scooter Libby ignored advice of counsel in 2004 and withheld "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."
Matthew Yglesias compares language from a pre-war, unclassified document ("Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs") with declassified bits of the classified National Intelligence Estimate on which it was (supposedly) based. What's the difference? The State Department's Intelligence and Research (INR) dissents to the party line about Iraq and nukes. It's all there in the July 2004 Senate report, too, but it's buried.
Tellingly, last week former chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote in the LA Times that a "secret cabal" led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made some of the most important decisions about national security -- and the war in Iraq. He described the secret process as "furtive" ... "insular" ... "disastrous."
In an indictment of how the White House treated contrarian views, he writes:
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) derided the maneuver, saying it was "not needed, not necessary and, in my personal opinion, was a stunt." "The United States Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership," said Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN).
Reid countered: "There's nothing more important to a Congress or a president than war. I think the American people are entitled to know how we got there. That's what this is all about."
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WVA), ranking minorty member and vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, asserted that the Republican committee leadership refused to press the White House for documents. "What disturbs me the most is the majority has been willing, in this senator's judgment, to take orders from this administration when it comes to limiting the scope of appropriate, authorized and necessary oversight investigations," he said.
A statement on Rockefeller's web site says that last month Frist " unilaterally cancel[ed] a briefing that would have provided all Senators, Republicans and Democrats, with a better understanding of the problems we face in Iraq."
The NY Times editorializes:
Blogs following this story: Crooks and Liars (video clip) Hotline On Call, Political Animal, Washington Note
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Iraq, Harry Reid, Politics
The move succeeded in shifting media attention from the Alito nomination to the war in Iraq, where US soldiers killed have passed the 2,000 mark.
According to the Boston Globe, the Senate has invoked Rule 21 to force a closed session only 53 times since 1929; most have been about security issues with the notable exception being discussions in 1999 about President Clinton's impeachment. In a closed session, doors are shut, lawmakers hand over their cellphones and pagers, and the "substance of the meeting must not be publicly discussed."
Report Postponed in 2004
Phase one of the Intelligence Committee investigation, released July 2004, focused on the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a key rationale for instigating the war. That report blamed the CIA. The second phase was supposed to examine how the White House used intelligence and if intelligence was deliberately manipulated to make the case for war. Democrats agreed to the delay, but are now crying foul, more than a year later and no report forthcoming.
Last week, Taegan Goddard's Political Wire noted that Vice President Cheney and Scooter Libby ignored advice of counsel in 2004 and withheld "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."
Matthew Yglesias compares language from a pre-war, unclassified document ("Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs") with declassified bits of the classified National Intelligence Estimate on which it was (supposedly) based. What's the difference? The State Department's Intelligence and Research (INR) dissents to the party line about Iraq and nukes. It's all there in the July 2004 Senate report, too, but it's buried.
Tellingly, last week former chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote in the LA Times that a "secret cabal" led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made some of the most important decisions about national security -- and the war in Iraq. He described the secret process as "furtive" ... "insular" ... "disastrous."
In an indictment of how the White House treated contrarian views, he writes:
It takes firm leadership to preside over the bureaucracy. But it also takes a willingness to listen to dissenting opinions. It requires leaders who can analyze, synthesize, ponder and decide.He Said, She Said
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) derided the maneuver, saying it was "not needed, not necessary and, in my personal opinion, was a stunt." "The United States Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership," said Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN).
Reid countered: "There's nothing more important to a Congress or a president than war. I think the American people are entitled to know how we got there. That's what this is all about."
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WVA), ranking minorty member and vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, asserted that the Republican committee leadership refused to press the White House for documents. "What disturbs me the most is the majority has been willing, in this senator's judgment, to take orders from this administration when it comes to limiting the scope of appropriate, authorized and necessary oversight investigations," he said.
A statement on Rockefeller's web site says that last month Frist " unilaterally cancel[ed] a briefing that would have provided all Senators, Republicans and Democrats, with a better understanding of the problems we face in Iraq."
The NY Times editorializes:
[T]here is a much larger issue than the question of what administration officials said about Iraq after the invasion - it's what they said about Iraq before the invasion. Senator Harry Reid, the minority leader, may have been grandstanding yesterday when he forced the Senate to hold a closed session on the Iraqi intelligence, but at least he gave the issue a much-needed push.Mark Schmitt suggests this action may reflect a tipping point, "when the effective majority switches, when the minority takes control of the agenda well before an election." Pior "turns" occurred in 1994, led by then Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and in 1996, led by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA).
Blogs following this story: Crooks and Liars (video clip) Hotline On Call, Political Animal, Washington Note
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Iraq, Harry Reid, Politics