Bush's Fumbles Spur New Talk of Oversight on Hill

[RJnAbbysNana]

Bush's Fumbles Spur New Talk of Oversight on Hill

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 18, 2005; A07


After a series of embarrassing disclosures, Congress is reconsidering its relatively lenient oversight of the Bush administration.

Lawmakers have been caught by surprise by several recent reports, including the existence of secret U.S. prisons abroad, the CIA's detention overseas of innocent foreign nationals, and, last week, the discovery that the military has been engaged in domestic spying. After five years in which the GOP-controlled House and Senate undertook few investigations into the administration's activities, the legislative branch has begun to complain about being in the dark.

On Friday, after learning that the National Security Agency was eavesdropping on conversations in the United States, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said that the activity was "wrong and it can't be condoned at all," and that his committee "can undertake oversight on it."

That same day, the House approved a resolution that would direct the administration to provide House and Senate intelligence committees with classified reports on the secret U.S. prisons overseas.

Democrats have long complained about a dearth of congressional investigations into Bush administration activities, but their criticism has been gaining validation from others after the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, problems in Iraq and ethical lapses.

Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, said this fall that "the people's representatives over on the Hill in that other branch of government have truly abandoned their oversight responsibilities and have let things atrophy to the point that if we don't do something about it, it's going to get even more dangerous than it already is."

cont..........

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121700992_pf.html

[ellenfl]

1. dana milbank wrote this? i'm impressed! eom

[indepat]

2. The Congress has failed its constitutional mandate and thus failed the

people at a cost likely in the hundreds of billions of dollars not to mention countless lives, limbs, and functional brains. :grr: :grr:

[roguevalley]

3. every last one of them belongs in jail