Chairman Dean :: White House and Vice President's Office Should Cooperate!

[jefferson_dem]

:patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot::patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot::patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot:

Howard Dean: White House and Vice President's Office Should Cooperate With Iraq War Intelligence Investigation

11/2/2005 2:52:00 PM

To: National Desk

Contact: Karen Finney of the Democratic National Committee, 202-863-8148

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean today applauded Democratic Leader Harry Reid for forcing the Republicans in the Senate to investigate the misuse of intelligence in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Dean issued the following statement calling on the White House and the Vice President's office to answer questions about their roles in manipulating intelligence to build support for the war, smearing opponents of the war, and covering up that smear campaign:

"Last night, Senator Reid and his Democratic colleagues in the Senate stood up for the American people and for the brave men and women who have fought and died in Iraq by forcing the Republicans to investigate the manipulation of intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq.

"But the pursuit of the truth does not end on Capitol Hill. The Bush Administration must also cooperate with the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation. Americans deserve to know the truth about who in the White House -- and specifically in Vice President Cheney's office -- was involved in manipulating intelligence to build support for the war, engaged in a campaign to discredit those who tried to tell the truth, and orchestrated the effort to cover up that smear campaign. The American people also deserve answers about what role the Vice President himself played in all of this, and why people on his staff who were directly involved were promoted, not fired. It is time for the Vice President to offer candid answers to these questions.

"America deserves better. On the heels of one of the deadliest months in the war, we need to know the truth about how we got into a war that continues to claim the lives of so many of our nation's brave men and women."

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=56087

[dchill]

1. But first...

they'll have to cooperate with each other...

[rodeodance]

2. Cheney is cooperating-by crafting the language of Phase II Report.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10446
The Report They Forgot
From our November issue: The Fitzgerald probe reminds us: Whatever happened to Pat Roberts' Phase II intelligence report?

By Laura Rozen
Web Exclusive: 10.19.05


.......But committee staff sources say that before the cooperation ceased, the committee had received from Feith’s office internal memos suggesting that the office may indeed have been conducting unlawful activities. In particular, Democratic staffers are interested in a secret December 2001 meeting of two Feith deputies, Larry Franklin and Harold Rhode, with Ghorbanifar in Rome. The meeting also included members of a foreign intelligence service (Italy’s SISMI). The catch is that it wasn’t reported in advance to the intelligence committee or the CIA, in possible violation of Section 502 of the National Security Act, which says that anyone conducting intelligence activities must inform the committee and the agency.

Among the documents in the committee’s possession, the Prospect has learned, is a cable the CIA station chief in Rome sent to Langley expressing concern that members of Feith’s office were involved in an unauthorized covert action. The committee also has Franklin’s Rome report, which, according to sources, revealed that the meeting included the discussion of possibilities for engaging a network of Ghorbanifar associates to pursue action against Tehran. (Franklin pled guilty in October to charges stemming from a separate FBI investigation. Feith left the Pentagon for the private sector over the summer.)

“ made an offhand comment at a press conference, which was totally accurate,” a source close to the investigation told the Prospect. “Some of these guys may have crossed the lines into illegalities. Can you imagine if during Iran-Contra the executive branch had said, ‘We’re not going to provide you any more information because one of your members suggested that one of our members may have acted illegally’? In those days, neither Republicans nor Democrats would have stood for that for one minute.”

But that was then. Today, committee Republicans view their mission as being not oversight but cover-up. Indeed, one source told the Prospect that Roberts has worked closely behind the scenes with Vice President Dick Cheney’s office in crafting the language defining and limiting the investigation’s terms -- even though the committee is supposed to be investigating and providing oversight of the administration’s use of Iraq intelligence. Yet the committee’s leading Democrat, Rockefeller, hobbled by criticism from within the committee -- and according to one account, “a wimp … not confident of his own judgments” -- has felt constrained from pushing the majority more aggressively to comply with its promise.

[rodeodance]

3. and Talking Points says Roberts is covering for Cheney

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_10_23.php#006865


(October 27, 2005 -- 04:09 PM EDT // link)

Murray Waas in 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."

We'll have more on this shortly. But there's more to be said about why this is coming out now, especially since the chairman of the committee, Sen. Roberts (R-KS) was doing his best already to cover for the vice-president.
-- Josh Marshall

[dchill]

6. I savor the phrase "crafting the language"

It rolls off the tongue so smoothly, yet the taste still lingers...

Soon Pat Roberts will have to stop smoking the Kool Aid. Or whatever it is he does that makes him lie so obviously.

[rodeodance]

4. kick

[rodeodance]

5. kick again