A Panel Above Politics
By Pat Roberts
Thursday, November 13, 2003; Page A31
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is conducting a comprehensive review of prewar intelligence on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs and his ties to terrorist groups. We are evaluating the quantity and quality of intelligence as well as the reasonableness of the judgments reached by the intelligence community.
We are also focusing on whether anyone was pressured to tailor or change his or her analysis to conform to a specific policy goal. Finally, we intend to conclude whether the intelligence community's judgments were correct, after David Kay completes his search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Committee staff members have reviewed thousands of pages of documents and interviewed more than 100 analysts and experts. It is probably the most comprehensive review of intelligence since the creation of the committee in 1976. Notwithstanding this monumental effort, Democrats have been calling for an expansion of the committee's review to include the "use" of intelligence by Bush administration policymakers.
While this sounds reasonable on the surface, it conceals a more nefarious intent. A memo written by the committee's Democratic staff, revealed in the press last week, makes clear that the minority's goal is to prejudge and use the committee's review and what the memo describes as "vague notions regarding the use of intelligence" to "castigate" the Republican members of the committee and conduct a partisan attack on the president. I will not allow this to happen.
As chairman, I must ensure that the intelligence committee conducts its oversight in a responsible, nonpartisan manner. While the committee was set up to be as immune from political pressures as possible, it requires member discipline to preserve that heritage. If we give in to the temptation to exploit our good offices for political gain, we cannot expect our intelligence professionals to entrust us with our nation's most sensitive information. You can be sure that foreign intelligence services will stop cooperating with our intelligence agencies the first time they see their secrets appear in our media.
Despite the strong request of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), to date not one Democrat, save Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, has publicly repudiated the attack plan laid out in the memorandum. I can reach only one conclusion from this silence: that they have decided to put partisanship ahead of our nation's security in this matter.
What if there had not been such a memo? Should the committee then be looking at the administration's "use" of intelligence? The threshold question for the committee should be whether our intelligence agencies produced reasonable and accurate analysis, not how that intelligence was used by policymakers.
There is no doubt how the intelligence was used. It was used by President Bill Clinton to insist on weapons inspections and to launch Operation Desert Fox when inspectors were compelled to leave because Hussein refused to cooperate. It was used by President Clinton and President Bush to keep Hussein in a box by enforcing the northern and southern "no-fly" zones. It was used by the United Nations to pass resolution after resolution insisting that Hussein disarm. Ultimately it was used by this administration and this Congress to present a case to the world that Hussein had to be disarmed once and for all.
There are no secrets here -- nothing to review. Intelligence information was used publicly, and it will not take a Senate committee to evaluate whether that information was accurately portrayed by public officials.
The committee's review is examining whether the intelligence community's assessments were accurate and justified based on the intelligence available at the time. When our review is complete, we will present our judgments to Congress and the public, which can then decide for themselves whether the intelligence was accurately represented by government officials.
My predecessors had the wisdom and foresight to create a committee intended to be above partisan politics so it could be an effective and credible watchdog. It is now apparent that the Democrats planned to undermine the integrity of the committee by conducting a partisan attack, which threatens to destroy the credibility of an institution that has served the U.S. Senate and the nation well for nearly 30 years. I oppose them and for this I make no apologies.
The writer, a Republican senator from Kansas, is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
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