Media overlooked Sen. Roberts's conflicting statements about investigation into Bush administration's use of intelligence before Iraq war
<snip> In a July 13, 2004, press conference, Roberts elaborated that phase two would include three things: 1) "what the intelligence community said in regards to what would happen after the military mission was over"; 2) the role of the Defense Department's Office of Special Plans, led by undersecretary Douglas Feith; and 3) "the use question" in which the committee would "look at the public statements of any administration official and public official ... and compare it with the intelligence and what we have found out in regards to the inquiry." <snip>
In March, Roberts appeared to redefine phase two, suggesting that the investigation would not examine how Bush administration officials allegedly manipulated the available intelligence, if the investigation was completed at all. In early March, Roberts said that the inquiry into the use of intelligence was "on the back burner." Then, in a March 31 press release in which he commented on the release of phase one of the report, Roberts stated: "I don't think there should be any doubt that we have now heard it all regarding prewar intelligence. I think that it would be a monumental waste of time to replow this ground any further." <snip>
Roberts again contradicted himself on the April 10 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, when he reaffirmed his 2004 commitment to include an assessment of the use of intelligence by policymakers in phase two of the investigation. However, in that appearance, he also downplayed such an endeavor as something other than the "real issue" and baselessly concluded that it would only show "that the intelligence was wrong and that's exactly why they
said what they said" <snip>
In July, Roberts again reneged on his pledge to investigate the use of intelligence. After release of the Downing Street memo, a secret British intelligence document indicating that intelligence officials there believed that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" by the Bush administration to support its case for war, Senate Democrats -- led by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) -- wrote to Roberts and Rockefeller on June 22, urging them to "accelerate to completion the work of the so-called 'phase II' effort to assess how policymakers used the intelligence they received." In a July 20 response to Kerry, Roberts disputed that the Senate Intelligence Committee had "agree to examine the vague notion" of how policymakers used intelligence, and argued -- irrelevantly -- that the point was moot because the committee unanimously found that the intelligence community's assessments were not "influenced by political pressure." Contrary to Roberts's argument, whether the intelligence was tainted by "pressure" is a wholly separate matter from how that intelligence was used once it was obtained by the administration. <snip>
http://mediamatters.org/items/200511020008
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
