US Senator (Rockefeller) Says Senate Inquiry on Iraq Ignoring White House

[kainah]

A key Democrat is charging that a Senate inquiry is largely ignoring questions about whether the White House misused pre-war intelligence information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Senator Jay Rockefeller says he believes Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts wants to blame intelligence agencies, but not the White House and other branches of government.

Senator Rockefeller says politics should not be allowed to influence the investigation. The White House has been accused of badgering intelligence agency analysts into concluding Iraq had weapons of mass destruction to justify the U.S. invasion.

snip...

Also Friday, at a meeting with Senate Democrats, a former CIA senior intelligence analyst said Vice President Dick Cheney made several visits to the agency before the Iraq war.

The analyst, Vince Cannistraro, said such visits could be construed as attempts to pressure intelligence analysts to find evidence to support the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq.

more...

http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=EE178FE2-6AD9-4013-867F27AB7928423D

Amazingly, this is a top story on google news right now. The Dem Policy Committee hearing with Vince Cannistraro and Larry Johnson was devastating. It will re-air tonight on C-SPAN at 11:47 PM and again at 3:30 PM. It is 1.5 hours long. Set the VCR.

[Postman]

1. Pat Roberts is another one that should be in handcuffs...

obstruction of justice.

[Gloria]

2. Just watched this meeting again...it IS devastating...Johson

really lambasted Bush....The third "witness", now a lawyer, was also very good.

[kainah]

3. this story is top on yahoo

in the AP, the AFP, Reuters, Washington Post........ It's interesting that the press is actually tying together the conflict between Roberts and Rockefeller on the report with the hearing held by the Dems today with Cannistraro, Johnson & the guy who's name I forget.... If they didn't have this link to tie it to, I'll bet that the press would be totally ignoring that hearing by the Dems, although there were quite a few press people there. David Corn was in the front row but he's a "usual suspect."

[TacticalPeek]

5. I believe the lawyer is Jim Marcinkowski, who was CIA app. 1986-1989 (?).

Apparently he now works in the highly specialized legal world of intel, classified information, ex-agents, etc.

This thread is exciting blow-by-blow during the original broadcast:

DU Thread

[Flying_Pig]

4. They aired Capistrano and snip on the meeting on CBS News

tonight. It was pretty lightweight though, as they did not show enough testimony to make people jump out of their chairs. Oh, well, at least it was something.

On edit:

Roberts is an ugly pro-bush fascist with nasty looking teeth. He grosses me out. The Repugs cannot be allowed to sweep this under the rug. Thankfully, groups like MoveOn.org, are going to start running full page advertisments in all major newspapers, and television ads, nailing Bush for his lies. It's MoveOn's biggest campaign yet, and I think it'll finally shake things up

Log on to: www.moveon.org , and see for yourself what they're planning.

[goforit]

6. Pres. was wrong/House of Reps was wrong/ Senate was wrong!!!!

And...........

They are all sweeping it under the rug!!!

[realFedUp]

7. I don't understand the foot dragging in connecting the dots

It's clear that Cheney and his crew wanted to
invade Iraq even before 9/11 and after it happened
needed the reasons to invade, so wrote the script
and pressured the intelligence community to support
their talking points. Tenet is culpable for going
along with this whole charade as well as the
writers of this script.

[alfredo]

8. Let them blame it on the intelligence community. They mess with them

at their own peril.

[Neecy]

9. jeez, what changed his tune?

Didn't Rockefeller stand up in the Senate just last week and argue against an amendment to establish an *independent* committee to investigate the pre-war intelligence? Didn't he whine that the Senate Intelligence Committee was the proper forum, and was doing its job, and there wasn't a need for an independent outside panel?

Didn't Dianne Feinstein then stand up and prattle the same nonsense, claiming that the Intelligence Committee could indeed issue a nonpartisan report?

And didn't they both vote against the amendment?

"Senator Rockefeller says politics should not be allowed to influence the investigation."

His mistake was trusting Roberts et al in the first place. He should know better.

[DrBB]

10. What this country needs is a second political party.

Hadn't heard this. Why can't these idiots fight back? Don't they have a CLUE???

[calimary]

11. Hate to nag, but remember that TOLL FREE Capitol Hill number:

1 (800) 839 - 5276

Call it first thing Monday morning and they'll transfer you to anybody's office you ask for, in the House and/or Senate. DEMAND A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR!!!!!

Folks, we HAVE TO KEEP THE HEAT ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ronzo]

12. Couldn't agree more.

It's time to call/fax/mail/email your public servants on Monday. Demand answers.

http://www.congress.org/