Rockefeller: Cheney applied "constant" pressure to stall investigation on flawed Iraq intelligence

[deminks]

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16546019.htm

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney applied “constant” pressure on the Republican former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee to stall an investigation into the Bush administration’s use of flawed intelligence on Iraq, the panel’s Democratic chairman charged Thursday.

“It was just constant,” Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said of Cheney’s pressure on Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), who chaired the committee from 2003 until Democrats took control of Congress this month.

Roberts’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rockefeller’s comments, in an interview with McClatchy newspapers, were among the most forceful he has made about the reason the committee failed to complete the effort under Roberts.

[rfranklin]

1. "Flawed?" It was manipulated to bang the war drums.... nt

nt

[Canuckistanian]

27. The "manufactured" intel was flawed - and highly improbable

Osama and Saddam hated each other. Saddam had long given up on WMDs. Iraq was no threat in 2002/2003.

The "real" intelligence community already knew this.

[burythehatchet]

2. ALL ROADS END AT CHENEY"S UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

EVRY SINGLE ONE.

[Auntie Bush]

11. I wish the FBI could storm the doors of Cheney's Undisclosed Location and

confiscate his computers and files. I'll bet we'd get a lot of answers to a lot of questions...including the infamous Energy Files. Wouldn't that be nice? We'd have the whole administration in jail faster than I could type, "You're under arrest and have the right to an attorney bla, bla, bla." If they could do it to Jefferson...which set a president...they could do it to Cheney. Don't I wish!

[burythehatchet]

13. Too late - remember the shredder trucks in front of his house?

[goforit]

14. Oooops I forgot, the FBI works for him. LOL!!!

[aggiesal]

21. Too late ...

Check out this link: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/10/31/shredding-with-dick/

[Kikosexy2]

29. Will Cheney's ...

head explode first or his heart?...Looks like Darth Dick is in real deep doo-doo...oh man, keep singing you Repig canaries..we're loving it..

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. you just have to look at the Libby trial today

Martin did surely spill some beans!

[deminks]

4. I saw some of it. I am going back to read later.

Coupled with this little tidbit, I hope Darth is in deep doo doo.

[caledesi]

5. Drip...Drip...Drip...I am loving this. NT

[hippiechick]

6. Wow, it must be "Kick Dick" week!

I LIKE it !!!! :applause: :bounce: :rofl:

[babylonsister]

7. Nom! I figured this must be going on, but it's nice to see Rockefeller

admit it finally. I hope they are relentless in getting this info. What have they been hiding, or is it just their own ineptness?

[C_U_L8R]

8. How much longer until the Chimp proclaims

It was all Dick's idea !! He's to blame !!

(throwing crashcart under the cart as it were)

[grytpype]

9. Maybe we'll finally get the report.

And the Democrats will write it.

Sweet.

[Lasher]

24. Oh, I assure you the report is coming

What we're talking about is the remaining 3 of 5 Phase II sections. Roberts blocked Rockefeller's every attempt to get them released. Phase II builds on the Committee’s July 2004 report on the Intelligence Community’s failures prior to the Iraq war.

On September 8 last year the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released two out of five sections of its Phase II report that seeks to understand how intelligence was prepared and used by policy makers in the lead up to the war with Iraq. The two reports addressed:

A comparison of prewar assessments with postwar findings on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program and potential links to al-Qa’ida terrorists

The role of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) in providing prewar intelligence.

The Committee has yet to complete the remaining three reports that deal with:

The quality of prewar intelligence assessments about postwar Iraq

Whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials made between the Gulf War period and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated by intelligence information

Any intelligence activities relating to Iraq

Here is a strong indication of what these remaining three sections will contain. On January 11 in his opening statement as Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Rockefeller said:

Based on the findings of the Committee’s Iraq investigation, I have concluded that the Administration promoted non-existent links between Iraq and al-Qaeda in an effort to sell a war that was fundamentally about regime change, not about an imminent threat to America.

http://rockefeller.senate.gov/news/speeches/threathearing011107.html

To paraphrase, Jay has proof Junior and his cronies lied us into the war in Iraq.

Last year when I dared to hope we might regain control of the Senate, this is one of the biggest reasons why.

[lyonn]

31. Probably dumb question: Did Rockefeller see the unreleased

portions of the report? If he didn't see it how did Robert's know to block it from being released? I'm assuming Roberts saw the whole report.

[Lasher]

33. A very good question, actually.

If Jay had not seen the unreleased portions before, which I think to be unlikely, he has certainly seen them since he assumed the chairmanship. Of course, Roberts had guilty knowledge all along, and IMO blocked what Lord Vader told him to block.

I know Jay's nature pretty well since he is one of my state Senators and I met him long ago, before he ever ran for office. He is a reserved kind of guy and not prone to flamboyancy. At length these thugs have made him really mad. Beware the easy going fellow who is at length provoked to anger.

No negative reflection on any of you other fine DU'ers but I am proud to have both Jay and Bobby Byrd as my two Senators. I don't know of any other two who are as effectively holding our criminal regime to task for their lies to take us into the invasion of Iraq.

[goforit]

10. Well good for Jay. Obstruction of evidence is criminal just as the crime of

intentional treason is.

[Miss Chybil]

12. Once Cheney is out of office, then they can impeach his boss. nt

[Roland99]

15. I am Jack's complete lack of surprise

[Independent_Liberal]

16. Prosecute and jail Roberts for obstruction of justice, conspiracy, treason and espionage!

Stonewalling Iraq/WMD inquiries, engaging in a Niger/Yellowcake cover-up, leaking classified information, blocking ethics investigations into Richard Shelby, etc. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he has bribe money from the American Turkish Council, MZM and Abramoff stashed in a freezer in his office.

[nealmhughes]

17. Why did Roberts even take his calls after the harassment began?

He doesn't answer to Dick Cheney. How in the world does a Senate Committee Chair get badgered unless he allows it?

Were I a senator and a member of the Executive Branch began to stall my investigation, I would have told him to knock it off, and if it didn't cease, go to the President, and if that didn't work, go public.

If I might bowdlerize Animal Farm: "All three branches are equal, only some are more equal than others."

[Zambero]

22. Because Cheney threatened to take him hunting if he didn't!

The good Senator did NOT wish to engage in the following conversation:

"Oops, Sorry there Patty boy, My mistake...
What the hell were you doing out there in that cornfield besides resembling a quail?"

[Zorra]

18. Obviously, sneaky Dick is a POS traitor. n/t

[confludemocrat]

19. Duly noted, Jay. Now get crackin'.

times a wastin' on gettting the inquiries rolling that can get as much truth out as possible on this crime. We need it as ammo for 2008.

[whistle]

20. Keep up the pressure on the thug Dick Cheney, that is what he is a thug

...he must be impeached, prosecuted, put under close watch and he should not be allowed to walk freely anywhere on this planet. Bush must be impeached along with his entire current and ex cabinet KKKarl Rove, Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and others and they should all serve long sentences.

These rat-bastard reTHUGlicans have been screwing the American people and going unpunished for over 40 years and it must be stopped now so that any future thugs will get the message that this will not be allowed to happen ever again in America.

Following Watergate and all the Nixon felons the excuse was "America will be put into a constitutional crisis", so we forgave the guilty parties and let them go free. The the brazen bastards did it all over again under Ronnie-Ding Raygun with Iran/Contra and again the felons were captured found guilty of the most egregious crimes against humanity, but turned loose again to become repeat offenders.

Well this time, it is Bush's 9/11-Yellow-Cake-Stolen Elections Constitutional shredding affair and nobody should be set free. They need life sentences for treason without parole. Dubya is a very sick man and should be placed into treatment where he can spend the rest of his natural life making doll-cutouts. Dick Cheney can have his pacemaker replaced with a very low voltage variety so that if he so much as thinks about lying it will shut down completely. The rest of the Bush felons should all get life sentences and be placed into different maximum security federal prisons where they can spend their natural lives reviewing all the inhuman things they have done recognizing that only after Armageddon will they receive their just judgment

[NJCher]

23. parallels

After Cheney fumed at Wolf asking about his daughter, a television commentator, someone who knows Cheney over the years, observed that in the past few years he has become more and more sensitive about his privacy.

I think it's because it's a parallel with investigations closing in on him. Yeah, no wonder he was touchy about the questions about Mary. He's being questioned all over the place.

So we have a kind of curious reversal here: cheney in public becoming angry over his privacy and cheney's public actions being investigated in private (and only now becoming public).



Cher

[Lasher]

25. Uh, he's sensitive about his privacy?

Lemme see: Pretty good part of his life in politics, currently serving as a very high profile VP. And he goes on national television to say he is sensitive about his privacy? Say what? Sorry, but you can't have it both ways.

Edit: Another good discussion on this subject going on in GD http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x41068

[Jawja]

26. And per the

un-Constitutional policies this bastard has cooked up, he doesn't care too much for the privacy rights of others.

Cry me a river. :nopity:

[donkeyotay]

28. I don't think much pressure had to be applied in this case

When he was made head of the committee, I visited his website and checked out the speeches he was making. He was particularly fond of this quote:

REMARKS FOR SENATOR PAT ROBERTS VISIT WITH DEPLOYING TROOPS
FORT RILEY, KANSAS
FEBRUARY 28, 2003
Quotes Washington Post columnist Michael Kelly:
We do not have to suffer our enemies; we can defeat them. We do not have to endure terrorism; we can destroy the terrorist. We do not have to listen to the self-haters and self-doubters whose eternal cry is that it is our fault and that it cannot be done. We just need to do what needs to be done. We can make the next century an American one."
end>

So you and I must shut up, so that the next century can be an American one...whatever that means. As the chair of the over...sight committee, I'm sure he was committed to making sure war was the last resort.

[sakabatou]

30. I hold this country hostage for... ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

[Eurobabe]

32. I don't know how Crashcart hasn't gone into cardiac arrest yet

with all the shit hitting the fan these days.

[goclark]

34. He has no heart so it can't stop