U.S. Panel Vetting WMD Intelligence Starts with Iraq

[maddezmom]

Thu May 20, 3:14 PM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A commission set up by President Bush (news - web sites) will begin examining the quality of U.S. intelligence on weapons of mass destruction next week with a look at claims that triggered the war against Iraq (news - web sites), a spokesman said on Thursday.


The bipartisan commission, headed by former Virginia governor and senator Charles Robb, a Democrat, and appeals court judge Laurence Silberman, a Republican, will compare prewar intelligence about weapons in Iraq with on-site investigations since then, which have so far failed to find evidence of a WMD program.


Future sessions will also examine the quality of intelligence on WMD in countries such as Libya or in the hands of militant groups.


"The mission is to figure out how good U.S. intelligence is when it comes to tracking WMD. It's looking at the intelligence agencies, so most of the work ahead can't be done in public," Larry McQuillan, the spokesman for the panel, told Reuters.


Those on the seven-member panel also include Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), an Arizona Republican, and former deputy CIA (news - web sites) director Adm. William Studeman.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=9&u=/nm/20040520/ts_nm/security_usa_wmd_dc

timing seems a bit strange after all the Chalabi news today... :shrug:

[struggle4progress]

1. Does anybody expect much from this commission?

[oldhat]

2. Who cares?

Who cares? How many investigations are going right now? None of these are going to change a damn thing. The corruption in Washington is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Nothing's going to change. More whitewashes. More suggestions for the politicians and bureaucrats to fuck up not quite as hard in the future. More secrecy. More plausible deniability.

I don't give a damn anymore. Who gives a fuck about any of these investigations? They'll accomplish nothing.

[Spazito]

3. Call me a cynic but...

the news coming out that Chalabi and his group has been paid 33 million dollars over 4 years, this commission about to start investigating the intelligence that led to the invasion and I am supposed to believe that the sudden "unpopularity" of Chalabi is just coincidence?

[maddezmom]

4. exactly

why all of a sudden is the misadministration worried about the quality of WMD info??? Cheney still uses the connection of Iraq and AQ in stumps speeches.