New Senate Report Is Worst Betrayal Yet

[davidswanson]

By David Swanson

Here it is, yawn, on the Friday before Memorial Day Weekend and on the day after a war debate in Congress, all 229 pages of it, and as riveting as a phone book: the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on Bush and Cheney's war lies: http://intelligence.senate.gov/prewar.pdf This is what we've waited all these years for? Nancy Pelosi shaved her legs for THIS?

We elected Democratic majorities in November of 2006 so that they could end the occupation and hold accountable those who had launched it. We had every reason to expect serious investigations, subpoenas, and impeachment hearings. For the previous two years the Democrats in Congress had clamored for hearings and information on the lies that the White House had used to sell the war. The Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee had loudly protested the Republican Chair's refusal to produce a serious report on those lies. Progressive Democrats in the House had advanced numerous resolutions of inquiry into such matters as the Downing Street Minutes and the White House Iraq Group. In 2007, all that desire to expose the war lies evaporated. We have been betrayed.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has subpoenaed Condoleezza Rice to testify about the forged Niger documents, but she's refused to comply, and Chairman Henry Waxman has said and done nothing about it.

The Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing because the Pentagon released a whitewash report on the crimes of Doug Feith, but Chairman Carl Levin never followed up on all the leads exposed in that hearing.

Other than these two instances, Congress has left the war lies completely alone for the full five months of Democratic rule. Meanwhile, polls have shown strong majority support for investigating the pre-war "intelligence."

The new Democratic House Intelligence Committee Chair Silvestre Reyes announced right away in January that he would only "look forward" and would leave the matter of the war to the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Senate Intelligence Committee proceeded to do nothing. New Chairman, and previous Ranking Member, Senator Jay Rockefeller lost all his passion for exposing the war lies at the crack of 2007. He said he would work on completing the report that had never been done. But he held no hearings and issued no subpoenas. The point of giving him the chairmanship had not been for him to sit in his office and write a "report" on information that was already public knowledge, but for him to hold hearings, call witnesses, issue subpoenas, publicize what was known and perhaps learn something new. The evidence needs to reach the public. More than enough of it has long been known and is collected at http://afterdowningstreet.org/keydocuments

The report that Rockefeller dumped on a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend, rather than publishing prior to Thursday's debate, was produced by a method that any of us could have employed, namely reading things that had already been published and summarizing them. To make matters worse, the report looks only at what the prewar predictions were for what the post-invasion conditions would be in Iraq. The report does not even summarize and give its stamp of approval to the existing and overwhelming body of evidence that the pre-war claims about weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda were known at the time to be false. THAT is the report everyone's waiting to see. And we don't want just a boring report. We want hearings on television. But, just as the Democrats agreed to steer the Iran-Contra hearings away from any evidence that might lead to President Ronald Reagan's impeachment, the current crop of Cheney Democrats seems intent on avoiding discussion of high crimes and misdemeanors.

On February 12, 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee announced that it had agreed to investigate the following list of items. The new report looks only at item E. We have not yet seen any reports, much less hearings or subpoenas, related to A-2, A-3, A-4, C, or G.

A. The matters set forth in the joint release of the Chairman and Vice Chairman on June 20, 2003:
1. the quantity and quality of U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs, ties to terrorist groups, Saddam Hussein's threat to stability and security in the region, and his repression of his own people;
2. the objectivity, reasonableness, independence, and accuracy of the judgments reached by the Intelligence Community;
3. whether those judgments were properly disseminated to policy makers in the Executive Branch and Congress;
4. whether any influence was brought to bear on anyone to shape their analysis to support policy objectives; and
5. other issues we mutually identify in the course of the Committee's review;
B. the collection of intelligence on Iraq from the end of the Gulf War to the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom;
C. whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials made between the Gulf War period and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated by intelligence information;
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;
E. prewar intelligence assessments about postwar Iraq;
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).

Senate Intelligence Committee Member Russ Feingold (D-WI) tries to put the best spin on the current report that he can:

"The report released today by the Senate Intelligence Committee underscores that the Administration was indifferent to the predicted negative consequences of the war in Iraq. The intelligence community's assessments, made prior to the war and widely disseminated within the Administration, also directly contradict many of the assertions made at the time by the Administration. The intelligence assessments available to the Administration before the war directly contradicted assertions that the war would help us fight al Qaeda. The intelligence community assessed that, as a result of the war, al Qaeda would probably see an opportunity to accelerate its operational tempo and increase terrorist attacks, terrorist groups would probably be encouraged to take advantage of a volatile security environment to launch attacks within Iraq and al Qaeda would try to take advantage of US attention on postwar Iraq to reestablish its presence in Afghanistan. The war's devastating impact on the fight against al Qaeda and on our national security has been apparent for some time. That the Administration was warned of the negative consequences before the war shows just how reckless it was."

True enough. Serious enough. Impeachable enough. But not what is needed to shake the capital of the empire. The clock is ticking, Chairman Rockefeller. The bodies are piling up.

[Warpy]

1. I think we can thank Lieberman

and his petulant insistence he'll change parties if they don't support his "Israel first" mindset, and that means supporting the war.

[enough already]

19. It's time to stop blaming Lieberman for everything that is wrong with our party

He's just one fucking jerkoff. If we insist on kissing his ass instead of doing the right thing, it's our own g-d fault.

[seemslikeadream]

2. The bodies are piling up.

[MaineDem]

3. Isn't this just a tad sexist?

"Nancy Pelosi shaved her legs for THIS?"

You lost me with that sentence. The rest will have to go unread.

[MikeH]

4. I am with you on this

I say that as a man who has always had a liking for body hair on women.

[rudy23]

7. It's a pop culture reference--to a song, or book, or CD or something. nt

[rinsd]

8. A refrence that would not be used if Pelosi was a man. And that's the point (nt)

[Longhorn]

9. Same reaction here. nt

[FrenchieCat]

13. Funny, me too! I stopped reading right then..... n/t

[rinsd]

5. "Nancy Pelosi shaved her legs for THIS?" WTF?

Fuyck you David. The sexist BS is completely unnecessary.

[Gelliebeans]

6. Dave

you might want to browse DU a bit more before making sexist statements like "Pelosi shaving her legs" especially if you want others to read beyond that.

Just saying...

[cascadiance]

10. And no committee still will call Sibel Edmonds to the stand...

Even though she and many whistleblowers are PLEADING for them to do so!

There's a window we're seeing of the government and what is really going on under the covers! The window is having a harder and harder time to cover up what's really going on now, but it doesn't stop them from doing what they're doing. It's seeming more each day like we're powerless to do anything unless we start taking up arms against this government the way the constitution prescribes to do when the government behaves like this, which sane individuals still are hoping like hell we don't have to do at some point!

[creeksneakers2]

11. The big thing missing here

Is that other reports are still to come out. The report comparing what the intelligence agencies said to what officials in Washington said is still in the works. The big stuff will play best in 2008. And staff has been working on all this even when hearings weren't taking place. I'm not sure the media would cover hearings even if they were held. Its all old news by now.

I don't know about the other networks but NBC led tonight with the latest report about warnings Bush ignored before going to war.

[Lasher]

12. There are two Phase II sections left to go.

The report just released concerns the quality of prewar intelligence assessments about postwar Iraq. The remaining two sections will examine:

whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials made between the Gulf War period and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated by intelligence information.

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.

[Adelante]

14. The Dems have been fighting to have the rest of Phase II declassified

I hate that they're getting hit on this by the OP when this battle over the Repug coverup has been going on for years. I disagree, though, that it's old news and that hearings are unnecessary. Bush and his administration have to be held accountable for lying the American people into this fiasco. Investigations and hearings are the only way, imo.

[Nunyabiz]

15. The Demspinelesscrats are going to do absolutely NOTHING

If these Treasonous war criminals are ever going to face any justice whatsoever it will have to come at the hands of "We the People".

[PATRICK]

16. Dozens of "Iran Contra" hearings

which deliberately seemed relaxed once devoid of the fangs and legs that the Watergate hearings evolved into. it is as if they are very happy to get it on the record and out of harm's way(i.e. actually acting on a Constitutional crisis). maybe sitting around and waiting for Nixon to resign over and over again, much as Chuck Schumer is EXPECTING Gonzales to do any day now.

The WH ex-Nixonites might have called their bluff but Iran Contra was the big revelation of how far short the Democratic Congress was willing to go, adding immunity instead of jail time to their persuasive efforts to make crooks behave like gentlemen.

Now that the bulky volume is entered into the Congressional Record, that can clear the Dems on Judgment day for all subsequent ills and accusations of complicity. Such exciting reading as to make St. Peter doze off bewildered like America watching the chatterbox, who me, I don't recall, I think I may have made mistakes, ploy.

Then we find out what mystical thing on a white charger is supposed to take all these committee investigations from here. The common people who have been absorbing bullets, death, loss of civil liberties, are supposed to push out the glorious middle roadkill Dems from beneath our legs if the authoritative MSM gives us permission to speak. After all, the reps who are not elected in sufficient numbers from candidates chosen for their caution and inoffensiveness can only be expected to do so much. And the measure of that so much even with 80% majorities everywhere is never confront a crisis that a road project can't handle.

The party is alive and well despite sore neglect for reality and habitual disappointments in its political and leadership judgment.

And BTW, all those federal judges just wouldn't dare do anything to save their future careers by carrying twater for the GOP in 2008- now that the jig is up. Surely they will resign too after the power of Bush to solely appoint new ones is eliminated someday. But heaven forfend that the noble monarch of the realm not have his personal choices of judges despite his clear intention to stack the courts with cronies to a purpose. What is the survival of America, of democracy, of Dem political careers!, compared with good manners and expectation of reciprococity in the clubbish good old boy scheme of things.

Why lose heart with the party when clearly its members have not yet had a fair chance to be fairly represented according to their wishes and needs? The Church is not is priests much less its child abusing ones nor is the Congress the will of the voter nor either party that of its current functionaries and elites.

[MasonJar]

17. There are two more reports which will be finished later; one will be

the biggy on the intelligence prior to the war and how it was used by the Bushistas to promote war. So do not despair. This info is from an NPR report I heard on the way to work Friday. However, we do need to keep the pressure on so that the next two reports are completely thorough.

[ProSense]

18. But Silvestre Reyes voted against the IWR!

Here.

More proof, along with these four Senators, that the IWR is not an anti-war indicator.

This is who and what started the war.

[pnwmom]

20. So the report is a "yawn," huh? Spoken like someone who would rather

no one actually read it. (Anyone who would refer to the Democrats on the Committee as "Cheney Democrats" isn't anyone I would trust. And anyone who would make a comment like that on Speaker Pelosi probably was trained at the Rush Limbaugh School of Journalism.)

From the International Herald Tribune:

SNIP

The 2003 assessments used strong language in warning about the possible rifts within a postwar Iraq.

"Iraq would be unlikely to split apart, but a post-Saddam authority would face a deeply divided society with a significant chance that domestic groups would engage in violent conflict with each other unless an occupying force prevented them from doing so," one assessment said. It warned of "score-settling" and "heightened competition for power among the different groups."

The assessment left to its last sentence a striking, if understated, preview of the insurgency. "Rogue ex-regime elements could forge an alliance with existing terrorist organizations or act independently to wage guerrilla warfare against the new government or coalition forces," it said.

The assessments, which compiled the consensus of the intelligence agencies, predicted that Al Qaeda would "accelerate its operational tempo and increase terrorist attacks" and could attempt to re-establish control in Afghanistan. They said an invasion of Iraq could increase support for extremists "as a result of Muslim outrage over U.S. action."

The assessment suggested that an Iraq war could strengthen Iran, where "some elements" could seek to "sow dissent against the U.S. presence and complicate the formation of a new, pro-U.S. Iraqi government."

SNIP

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/26/america/intel.1-62109.php