Graham eyes procedural move to unlock Saudi details in 9/11 report (CNN)

[lkinsale]

Graham, a Democratic presidential candidate who, as former Intelligence Committee chairman, helped produce the report, has telephoned the current committee chairman, Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, and vice-chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, to suggest that they use an existing but untested process by which the Senate can publicly disclose classified material despite the objections of the White House.

<snip>

A call for a vote to declassify may come from intelligence committee member Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, a vocal critic of administration secrecy.

His spokesman told CNN Durbin may initiate the procedure if he believes a majority of the committee will vote for making the material public.



http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/30/graham.intel.report/

[King_Crimson]

1. Go Bob Go...

the good Senator seems to have sprouted an extremely robust spine! I'd love to see Bob Byrd jump on this wagon!

[phillybri]

2. Balls of steel....

He just hit #2 on my list!

[w4rma]

3. Woo hoo! Graham is a pit bull!!! (n/t)

[lkinsale]

4. Well, there must be nothing all that embarrassing to Bush in there

Cause there are too many Republicans saying it could be declassified, Shelby and Snowe included.

So, I'm not expecting much, but it's a nice push to get the admin to quit the silliness. Highlights the continued stubbornness and obsession with secrecy. If Bush claims it's so sensitive, and it turns out it's not, then what the heck was his problem?

*******

Contribute to Graham For President (Enter "Laura Kinsale" as your BobCat if you want to give me credit toward my pledge to raise 1k for Bob.)



http://grahamchat.whitesandworks.com:80/chat/world/html/login.html

[whoYaCallinAlib]

17. My feelings too. If there was a bombshell in there . . .

you can bet all the repukes would be building a fort knox defense to protect Bush. And something would have leaked by now.

[hang a left]

23. There has got to be something there

because otherwise there wouldn't be the flap about releasing it. If there is nothing in it why bother. Remember all the senators have read it. I think at this point in the game some Republicans might be leary of not jumping off a sinking ship.

[knowledgeispower]

20. Not necessarily

The republicans that have been calling for the report to be entirely declassified are the non-neocon Republicans. They have almost as much reason to hate Bush as dems do.

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. It would be good to find out if the pages do indeed exist

The Saudi Arabia show made me wonder if they do, or if they would be more embarrassing to the bush regime or to Israel than to Saudi Arabia, since so much of their stuff has been outed already.

[qb]

11. I'll bet it's all about Saudi Arabia

The Saudi objections give the appearance that there is nothing incriminating there. Meanwhile, Bush protects his "Good Friends" by keeping it secret.

[DuctapeFatwa]

16. if it would embarrass Israel or the US, we'll never know

Or you could be right and they could just be playing Brer Rabbit :)

[webtrainer]

34. The whole Saudi prince visit yesterday was a show . . .

'oh, now that der bushmeister has explained the situation we understand completely why this (potentially damaging) information must remain secret' ROSEANNADANA "never mind . . ."

[Melinda]

6. Okay, time to mass mail those on the committee!!

It would help if someone has their information handy, but in the meantime I'll go find and then post the list of Intel committee members and contact info.


WTG Graham!!!

edited to add link Senate Intelligence Committee membership roster w/contact links

[GBD4]

8. Here

http://intelligence.senate.gov/members.htm

[Melinda]

9. Thanks, we'll get it right yet!!

:hi:

[GBD4]

10. lol

I found the link, and as soon as I posted it, I saw you had edited your post, too! :) Thanks! I hope all of us at DU get moving on this, it could do the trick!

[librechik]

12. and don't forget the phone calls

see above contacts

[GBD4]

7. Knowledge

His legislative dexterity and understanding of the minute details of Senate procedure may be the key to making these pages public! Kudos to Senator Graham for pushing the Senate to use their legislative branch's authority to beat down Bush.

[seafan]

13. He's OUR HERO, people!!!

"He's the Swiss Army knife," sighs an adviser to one of the other candidates. "No matter how you open him, he hurts somebody."

Time Magazine
May 18, 2003


Look out, W.


http://www.grahamforpresident.com/buzz/buzz1.html

:bounce: :bounce:

[GBD4]

14. From Graham's Website

similar, just slightly different than the CNN article

http://www.grahamforpresident.com/news/0307/featured/f030730-1.html

[Melinda]

15. ALL Contact Information:

Each link goes directly to all contact info including email, telephone, fax #'s, websites, addresses, etc.

REPUBLICANS:

Pat Roberts, Kansas, Chairman
contact

Orrin G. Hatch, Utah
contact

Mike Dewine, Ohio
contact

Christopher S. Bond, Missouri
contact

Trent Lott, Mississippi
contact

Olympia J. Snowe, Maine
contact

Chuck Hagel, Nebraska
contact

Saxby Chambliss, Georgia
contact

John W. Warner, Virginia
contact


DEMOCRATS:

John D. Rockefeller IV
West Virginia, Vice Chairman
contact

Carl Levin, Michigan
contact

Dianne Feinstein, California
contact

Ron Wyden, Oregon
contact

Richard J. Durbin, Illinois
contact

Evan Bayh, Indiana
contact

John Edwards, North Carolina
contact

Barbara A. Mikulski, Maryland
contact

[Jacobin]

19. I sent mine to all the repukes on the committee

Dear Sir:

I am hoping that your committee will be able to legally de-classify the 9/11 report which has been redacted by the White House. This White House has been extremely secretive about just about anything it has dealt with, which does not help citizens feel comfortable about what the government is doing. Excessive secrecy leads many to believe that the White House is hiding things embarrasing or damaging to the administration, rather than true security concerns.

Americans have a right to know what happened that day and in the days leading up to 9/11. We want to know if our administration was incompetent in protecting our country.

Mr. Bush seems to enjoy the ratings boost he gets from wars, but his track record with the truth on the reasons for war leaves something to be desired.

American citizens are very concerned about the competence and good faith of this administration. We need some light shed on the actions of the government we purportedly elected (forgetting the role of the Supreme Court for a moment)

Thank you for your service to the country.

[mpsteve]

18. I consider Graham to be the dark horse for the nomination

[On the Road]

21. Wow -- Senate Discovers the Separation of Powers!

[Postman]

22. Robert's will scuttle any attempt to do this...

he's a Bush mole

[lkinsale]

24. The procedure itself

As described in the CNN article:

The process, which according to committee staff has never been used, works like this:

- If a member of the intelligence committee asks the committee to hold a vote on publicizing classified material, the committee must do so within five days.

- If a majority of the committee then votes to make the material public, the president has five days to say whether he will declassify the material.

- If the president refuses, the committee may refer the matter to the full Senate for a closed vote.

- If a majority of the Senate votes to make the information public, the committee may go ahead and do so.

So, it appears from this that if any committee member asks, they MUST vote. It isn't up to the chair whether they take the vote or not.

Let's assume it got as far as the Senate. I wonder if this would mean that the senators would be allowed to read the redacted portions? This would be a "closed" vote.

Interesting. I wonder where this procedure originated? Must have been hidden there unnoticed by the Bushies. They will probably move to eradicate it now.

*******
Contribute to Graham For President (Enter "Laura Kinsale" as your BobCat if you want to give me credit toward my pledge to raise 1k for Bob.)



http://grahamchat.whitesandworks.com:80/chat/world/html/login.html

****

on edit: changed spellig of "prolly" to "probably." I forget I'm not in chat! ;)

[loudsue]

25. Good Gawd!!! Did you see the repuke names on that Committee? STACKED!

Absolutely STACKED with right wing extremists!! And when they all vote "NO" on Graham's proposal, nobody will be surprised(!), so nothing will come of it.

Graham needs another bullet in his pistol if he's going to get this thing made public.


:kick:

[ewagner]

26. Didn't Shelby say

that he thought it should be declassified?

[Jacobin]

28. Yeah. I think he did

Olympia Snowe might also help.

[FubarFly]

29. Shelby, Snowe, and Hagel

all could conceivably vote for declassification. If they also vote this way in the senate, then it will pass. I have no idea why any repug would want to this, unless the contents in the pages were relatively harmless. Or perhaps they view having an ace to potentially use against the neo-cons as being advantageous. I don't know. I would like to see those pages strictly on their own merit- regardless of whether they damage shrub or not. If the pages are harmless, they are cetainly making this more dramatic than it needs to be.

[paulthompson]

32. Snowe

Shelby unfortunately isn't on the committee, which I see as the main bottleneck. But Olympia Snowe is and has already come out in favor of declassifying. So if all the Demos stick together, they already have enough votes to get it out of committee, with Snowe's help alone.

[Nashyra]

33. I think Hagel is positioning himself in case the * falls

who better to win then the man that holds stock in the voting machines.

[seemslikeadream]

30. Yes Shelby did

and I heard on CNN that a Republican Senator Brownback of Kansas has sent a letter saying he wants it declassified. So that's at least 4 Repubs and 51 Senators can do it!

[0007]

31. Shelby said 95% should be opened up

*

[0007]

27. Hope it happens

either way junior will book a looser on this one.

[short bus president]

35. Shelby and Kyl made an appearance on CNN's 8pm show

Shelby maintains that most of the 28 pages should be declassified. Kyl says absolutely not, the pResident wants it kept secret. R v R on this. Then Shelby says that he will not join in asking the committee for a vote (step one in the procedure) unless Roberts says so first. Kyl smiles and looks smug. This thing ain't gonna happen unless the non-bushbot Rs grow a pair and do the right thing.

And on edit - CNN also reports that Feinstein and one other Dem. Intel. Cmte. member are refusing to join in asking for a committee vote on declassifying. Hey, thanks a whole helluvalot, Diane and friend.

[fujiyama]

36. Don't like Feinstein

I can't stand Feinstein ever since she voted for Bush tax cut in '01. People on this board rip on Lieberman an awful lot, but he did NOT vote for Bush's first tax cut in '01. She seems to escape a lot of criticism.

Coming from a pretty liberal state, you'd think they'd find a more liberal senator (Boxer on the other hand is better -- and also opposed the Iraq war.)

Anyways, no surprise from DF. She seems to behave like this. Be the swing vote on the intel comm. I wish she would leave the senate and try to win the gov. race in Ca but I think she enjoys the power...

God, when several republicans are now asking why this stuff won't be declassified what is the big deal? Or is it that sadly enough, government secrecy is something cherished by the bigwigs of both parties? Hell, this administration is so hellbent on secrecy they won't even declassify things that would harm Clinton (like info on the various pardons etc), just because they know that'd force them to release things. They have been overturning many things that Clinton had put into place regarding the releasing of fed. documents, but now everything has been been made class....

[newyawker99]

38. Hi fujiyama!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Jackpine Radical]

39. I agree on dislike of Feinstein

but she catches less flack than Holy Joe because at least she has the grace not to run for President.

And welcome to the board, Fujiyama.

[jamesinca]

37. There is an interesting quote in the link

"My point of view -- since I am in charge of fighting the war on terror --is that we won't reveal sources and methods that will compromise our efforts to succeed," he said during a Rose Garden news conference.- GW Bush
How do you explain the exposure of Ambassador Wilsons wife? Were you in charge of that also? Are you trying to cover your butt because your family lawyer, the one you keep on retainer (James Baker of Baker/Botts)is defending the Saudi Arabian people from law suits brought by the victims of 9/11? There is a 50+ year web of lies and deceit by the U.S. govt and SA. It is time to clean it up and start new. Bush will not take the high ground, do the morally correct thing. He will do what he needs to do to make a buck and secure his job in the post WH days.

[samsingh]

40. this should be a no-brainer

alot of people want the report public - except those, like Shrub, who have something to hide.