**Cheney, Libby Blocked Papers To Senate Intelligence Panel**

[BurtWorm]

WHITE HOUSE

http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1027nj1.htm#


By Murray Waas, special to National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005

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.

Among the White House materials withheld from the committee were Libby-authored passages in drafts of a speech that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered to the United Nations in February 2003 to argue the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq, according to congressional and administration sources. The withheld documents also included intelligence data that Cheney's office -- and Libby in particular -- pushed to be included in Powell's speech, the sources said.

The new information that Cheney and Libby blocked information to the Senate Intelligence Committee further underscores the central role played by the vice president's office in trying to blunt criticism that the Bush administration exaggerated intelligence data to make the case to go to war.

[rodeodance]

1. this was briefly brought up on Tweety show tonight--by Dem guest but

not discussed.

[madrchsod]

2. i wonder why no one wanted to

talk about that-----makes ya want to just say..hmmmmmmmm

[BurtWorm]

3. Weird.

This story is now on the front page of DU, from a post in LBN.