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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (6058)	11/2/2003 10:38:33 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 10965

Message 19457472

To: American Spirit who wrote (6058)	11/2/2003 10:43:19 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 10965

Democrats open second front against Bush in war over Iraqi secrets _____________________________________ By Julian Coman in Washington The Telegraph (Filed: 02/11/2003) Top Democrats in Congress are planning a second, "independent" investigation into the role of the White House and the Pentagon in processing pre-war intelligence on Iraq. The Democrats-only inquiry, targeting the actions of Condoleezza Rice and senior Pentagon officials, would be a dramatic breach of Washington protocol. It would be led by rebel members of the Senate Intelligence Committee (SIC), which has spent more than four months investigating the quality and use of the intelligence. Senior Democrats have accused the committee's Republican chairman, Pat Roberts, of giving top White House and Pentagon officials an easy ride. According to Richard Durbin, a Chicago senator and SIC member, a public split and new inquiry is inevitable. "We want to know whether the administration put pressure on the agencies to come up with certain kinds of information. It's the very question that has been explored at great length in Britain at the Hutton Inquiry," he told The Telegraph. "If the Republican leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee is determined to protect the administration at any cost, we'll do the investigative job on our own." The inquiry, under a rule never evoked before, would have legal powers to demand documents and summon witnesses from within the administration, potentially leading to high-ranking confrontations with top Bush officials. As the American death toll in Iraq mounts, it has become clear that Democrats have claimed the Iraq war and its aftermath as their own battleground for the forthcoming presidential elections. Party officials believe that a high-profile Bush administration resignation would provide a huge boost to any Democrat opponent. Moreover, a new investigation is likely to coincide with the first stages of President George W. Bush's re-election campaign. Both Republican and Democrat congressmen have been at loggerheads with the Bush administration over Iraq intelligence. Last week, the SIC set the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department a Friday deadline for handing over specific documents. On Friday, while the State Department provided 11 of 15 documents requested, there was no reaction from the Pentagon. A White House spokesman said: "We're talking with the SIC about their request." myantiwar.org