Bush May Endorse Iraq Intelligence Review
Sun Feb 1, 5:38 AM ET
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By KATHERINE PFLEGER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The White House is considering endorsing the creation of an independent commission that would investigate whether the United States used faulty intelligence information when it decided to go to war in Iraq (news - web sites), government sources said Saturday.
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They said a statement of support from the White House could come this week.
Until now, President Bush (news - web sites) has reacted coolly toward the idea of a new commission, refusing to endorse it publicly. But his administration is under mounting election-year pressure to agree to an independent inquiry about Iraq's alleged arsenal of banned destruction.
Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) has broached the possibility of a commission in conversations with members of Congress, according to government sources familiar with the conversations. These sources spoke on condition of anonymity.
Despite months of searching, U.S. inspectors have found no forbidden weapons in Iraq. Bush had cited the suspected weapons as a rationale for the war.
Bush, asked point-blank on Friday about a commission, declined to answer directly.
"I want the American people to know that I, too, want to know the facts," the president said.
He reaffirmed the administration's position that the Iraq Survey Group, which is searching for weapons of mass destruction, should complete its work and then compare its results with the administration's prewar intelligence.
Bush was asked about that intelligence Saturday by a senator from his own party, at a meeting in Philadelphia of congressional Republicans.
In response to the question from Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Bush responded much the same as he did to reporters on Friday, saying he wants to get to the bottom of how accurate U.S. intelligence was about Saddam's weapons before the war, an administration official said on condition of anonymity.
The Pentagon (news - web sites)'s second-in-command said Saturday flawed prewar intelligence should be investigated, but that inspectors' inability to find banned weapons did not mean the war was unnecessary.
"You have to make decisions based on the intelligence you have, not on the intelligence you can discover later," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said during a visit in Germany to the headquarters of the Army's 1st Infantry Division.
David Kay, the former head of the inspection team, has said the administration's intelligence on Iraq was "almost all wrong" and that the information on which Bush's war decision was based was erroneous.
The Senate Intelligence Committee chairman cited "a world intelligence community failure" for the inability to find banned weapons so far.
GOP Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, whose committee will release in March its report on prewar intelligence gathering, said in an Associated Press interview that he has concluded intelligence officers who had been cautious in assessing potential threats before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, became more likely to pass on speculative information afterward.
Kay has urged an independent look at the intelligence. That idea has won the support from Democrats in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., also supports the idea.
But with Republicans in control of Congress and the White House, it is unlikely an independent commission would be created without the president's blessing.
A full-blown investigation of Iraq intelligence failures could pose election-year risks for Bush. No one could be certain where it would lead, who it would touch or what it would uncover.
But resisting an investigation has hazards, too, many political analysts believe, because that could give Democratic presidential rivals an opening to keep the issue alive and question what the White House might be hiding.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (news - web sites), in a debate Thursday night, criticized Cheney for allegedly berating CIA (news - web sites) operatives because he did not like their intelligence reports.
"It seems to me that the vice president of the United States therefore influenced the very reports that the president then used to decide to go to war and to ask Congress for permission to go to war," Dean said.
North Carolina Sen. John Edwards (news - web sites) said his support for the Iraq war was based on years of intelligence briefings and evidence of Saddam's atrocities against his own people. He supports an independent commission "that will have credibility and that the American people will trust, about why there is this discrepancy about what we were told and what's actually been found there."
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), who also supports a commission, said whether Cheney influenced CIA officials to shape the intelligence he wanted is "a very legitimate question. ... There's an enormous question about the exaggeration by this administration."
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Associated Press writer John Hanna in Topeka, Kan., contributed to this report. |
