Intelligence Probe Takes Shape
Senators Discuss Inquiry Into Administration Statements About Iraq
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 10, 2005; Page A07
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....
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The most contentious part of the second phase -- comparing public officials' prewar statements to the intelligence available at the time -- has for now been turned over to the committee staff for additional work. The staff has been directed to collect major statements about Iraq's weapons programs by administration officials and members of Congress, as well as any relevant intelligence circulating at the time, whether it supported or undercut the statements, officials said.
"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....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/09/AR2005110902203.html