Bush Declines to Back Call for Intel Prob

[jbfam4]

Bush Declines to Back Call for Intel Prob http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040130/D80D92U80.html

Jan 30, 12:16 PM (ET)

By TERENCE HUNT





WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush said Friday "I want to know the facts" about any intelligence failures concerning Saddam Hussein's alleged cache of forbidden weapons but he declined to endorse calls for an independent investigation.

The issue of an independent commission has blossomed into an election-year problem for the president, with Democrats and Republicans alike supporting the idea. Former chief weapons inspector David Kay has concluded that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction, which Bush had cited as a rationale for going to war against Iraq.

Bush said he wants to be able to compare the administration's prewar intelligence with what will be learned by inspectors who are now searching for weapons in Iraq. There is no deadline for those inspectors, the Iraq Survey Group, to complete their work.

[Martin Eden]

1. Big brother can't take the scrutiny

The Bushies are all for the Patriot Act and expanding the government's powers to scrutinize the lives of private citizens, but when it comes to public scrutiny of their actions, they try to spin their way out of it by saying any investigation must wait until the search for weapons in Iraq is concluded.

Of course, they can extend the search as long as they want to -- which no doubt will be until after the election. They can dish out the scrutiny, but they sure can't take it.

This is a HUGE issue, because it goes to the heart of our national security and the intelligence upon which decisions about war are supposedly made.

It's time for the Democrats to step up and make sure the Bushies can't weasel out of an independent investigation -- at least not without a considerable political price.

[MasonJar]

2. Why is it up to the administration when it is to be a focus of the

investigation? Pat (whitewash the White House) Roberts and his pal from Virginia, John Warner, will never call for an investigation that is legitimate.