NYT/IHT: Sen.(Roberts)Hints No Wrongdoing on Prewar Intel(report this wk)

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Senator Hints No Wrongdoing Found on Prewar Intelligence
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
International Herald Tribune
Published: November 6, 2005


WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 - The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee strongly hinted today that a coming draft report on prewar intelligence on Iraq would find no evidence of the sort of political manipulation that some Democrats have alleged. He also said the report would be presented to members of his panel this week.

The committee chairman, Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, spoke five days after Democrats forced the Senate into closed session to protest what they said was 20 months of delay by the Republican-controlled panel on the phase of its inquiry into accusations that intelligence on Iraq had been manipulated to expedite the Bush administration's decision to take the country to war.

Republican leaders ended the closed-door showdown after a couple of hours by promising a progress report by Nov. 14.

But Senator Roberts, appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," said that Democrats knew all along that he intended to deliver the report this week, and he indirectly blamed them for the delay, saying that they had furnished the committee with the names of 350 policymakers whose prewar statements had to be checked.

But he also hinted that no manipulation would be found, saying that in the first phase of the panel's inquiry, "We interviewed over 250 analysts and we specifically asked them, `Was there any political manipulation or pressure?' Answer, `No.'"...


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/politics/06cnd-leak.html

[bullimiami]

1. lying pos asshole.

[Catch22Dem]

2. I'm gonna believe Roberts on this?

Are you fucking crazy? Why don't I just believe Condi and Cheney about mushroom clouds while I'm at it?

[xchrom]

3. duh -- what else is he going to say?

lol -- i feel like fox muldar -- ''the truth is out there'' -- way, far, way, way, far, far away out there.

[Lindsay]

4. Lies and more lies. Lying about the lying.

As Tim Ryan (D-OH) keeps saying, they care more about their party than they do about the country.

[NanceGreggs]

5. Nothing to see here, folks.

Go back to your homes.

That's what they said about the Plamegate affair for two years -- proven wrong, weren't they?

Maybe Mr. Roberts should go and ask Libby about the ability to hide political wrongdoing being a SLAM-DUNK!

[applegrove]

6. Was there any political manipulation or pressure?' Answer, `No.'"...

No - they were just ignored and groups set up to run around them and their findings.

[MO_Dem]

7. Surprise! Surprise!

Pat Roberts could not find any wrongdoing by a repig, ever, nohow, no way. Just wouldn't happen. And of course he's telling the truth.
:sarcasm:

[Rose Siding]

8. Dems are outnumbered by just one on his cmte

It will all rest with Olympia Snowe's choice.

Roberts' "report" won't even have a stitch in it about OSP -they refused to cooperate because they didn't like the things Rockefeller has said. Roberts wanted the statements examined by the committee to be anonymous! His report is a total sham.

If Snowe doesn't pull it out, the dems won't just drop this.

[Rose Siding]

11. Hagel and Warner will also have to sign off

I just can't see Roberts making all this noise about it today if it wasn't a done deal.

Since he's "finished", he says he just can't understand why Frist set up the six member panel to report on committee progress. I'll tell him why. The dems got the CAMERAS rolling on them. The lights were turned on! Frist HAD to act.

[MissMarple]

9. Roberts has lied all the way through this. How can he be this dishonest?

He said this week that he "planned" on having meetings.... Now, are these important meetings, frivolous meetings, or no meetings?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200511020008

"In reporting Sen. Pat Roberts's (R-KS) response to criticism from Democrats that he has stonewalled the portion of a Senate Intelligence Committee report dedicated to investigating the use -- or misuse -- of intelligence by Bush administration officials in the buildup to the Iraq war, the media overlooked Roberts's history of conflicting statements on the subject. Democrats say that stonewalling by Roberts and Senate Republicans on long-standing demands for an investigation into the use of pre-war intelligence prompted them to take the unusual step of invoking Senate Rule 21 and calling for a closed Senate session on November 1."

and further down...

"Roberts's misleading statements about phase two have continued in recent days. While he has continued to suggest that phase two will be released in the near future, Roberts has also continued to dismiss the need to examine the administration's use of intelligence in the buildup to the war. On the November 1 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, Roberts said:
ROBERTS: There's a part of me that says if you look in the rearview mirror, there's a little crack in regards to partisan lines, and figure out what somebody said two or three years ago, and was it justified by intelligence. I don't know the relevancy of that.

Roberts's past statements ignored by print, broadcast media

Roberts's history of conflicting statements about whether the Senate Intelligence Committee will, and should, examine the Bush administration's use of pre-war intelligence went unreported throughout the media. For example, November 2 articles by the Associated Press, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times did not report Roberts's contradictory statements about the investigation while reporting his claim that the move by Democrats to hold a closed session of the Senate to discuss pre-war intelligence was a "stunt," that he had not slowed the inquiry, and that the phase two report would be shortly forthcoming. Roberts's conflicting statements also went unmentioned in the broadcast media, including the November 2 broadcast of National Public Radio's (NPR) Morning Edition."

I think Mr. Roberts needs someone to keep track of his lies. But, then, WHO WILL REPORT THEM! :nuke:

[ClintonTyree]

10. I'm astonished!

Pat Roberts doesn't think anything is wrong? :wow: Well I KNOW he's a man of integrity and honesty, like the rest of the Republican party! He'd never lie to us, right?

This is really good news. For a while there I thought our government had been hijacked by a giggling murder monkey. What a relief! :sarcasm:

[longship]

12. First the conclusion, then the investigation.

nt

[rodeodance]

13. oh, Roberts is still stinging from getting called on the carpet!! te he.

....But Senator Roberts, appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," said that Democrats knew all along that he intended to deliver the report this week, and he indirectly blamed them for the delay, saying that they had furnished the committee with the names of 350 policymakers whose prewar statements had to be checked.

[rodeodance]

14. Brit Humes said Roberts will leak the Dem prewar statements.

http://www.warandpiece.com/
November 06, 2005

I'm supposed to be finishing an article, but this is not unrelated. On Fox news today, Brit Hume helpfully offered a sneak preview of the Pat Roberts/White House strategy over the next few days. In lieu of focusing on other parts of the Phase II investigation that was supposed to broadly be about policymakers' use of the Iraq intelligence they received, Roberts will leak to the White House and the GOP the pre-war statements by Democrats about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. (If you heard Newt Gingrich on ABC's This Week, you'll have gotten a taste of that, with statements of Rockefeller, Schumer and Hillary Clinton discussed). Fair enough. As Rockefeller pointed out on CNN's Late Edition today, it was president Bush that took this country to war, not the Democrats.

But unfortunately, this airing of Democrats' pre-war statements is the only part of the Phase II investigation that Roberts has ever shown any interest in. In fact, sometimes it seems he doesn't remember the full terms of reference that all 17 members of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, Republicans and Democrats, unanimously agreed to investigate back in February 2004. We're still waiting, for instance, on points D, F and G:

D. the postwar findings about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and weapons programs and links to terrorism and how they compare with prewar assessments; ...

F. any intelligence activities relating to Iraq conducted by the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group (PCTEG) and the Office of Special Plans within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; and

G. the use by the Intelligence Community of information provided by the Iraqi National Congress (INC)........

[rodeodance]

15. Kick-for the troops

[daleo]

16. If true, then they carefully chose their 250 analysts

And asked a question that it was virtually impossible to say yes to.

[Cuckoldshorns]

17. Sounds like the Bush-co "Company Line"

"We interviewed over 250 analysts and we specifically asked them, `Was there any political manipulation or pressure?' Answer, `No.'".

More smoke and mirrors. This is not the point. The manipulation didn't occur in the form of arm twisting at the CIA, it occurred in the form of cherry-picking the intelligence even though it had been debunked. The crime occurred, when the WHIGs, and the president, Rice, Cheney, and Powell knowingly presented discredited "evidence" to the world, over and over again. And for that they have blood on their hands.

[Amonester]

18. Welcome to DU! :-)

:hi:

And yes, blood on their entire body, they have.

http://icasualties.org

+ thousands and thousands of innocent human beings :cry:

[DeepModem Mom]

19. Good post, Cuckoldshorns. Thanks, and welcome to DU!!!

[newyawker99]

24. Hi Cuckoldshorns!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Mountainman]

20. Reminds me of the line in Good Morining Vietnam

"We ask them, are you the enemy? If they say yes we shoot them."

[shantipriya]

21. Pat Roberts

What do you expect from a political hack?I am afraid the second phase of the investigation will be useless UNLESS the witnesses are under oath when they testify.

[mmonk]

22. Trying to start a new revolutionary war?

If the Senate doesn't come clean, it's time for rebellion. I'm not suggesting violent, but political. You can't be free if your government lies to you or if you have a branch of government that engages in espionage against the country.

[lonestarnot]

23. Yeah ugh hugh yep. Sure.

[DFWJock]

25. This just in from Roberts:

Titanic journey was a huge success! Move along now.

[spanone]

26. Remember, Karl Rove asked Libby a question too. People LIE>

If you predict the outcome, the search doesn't even matter.