Senate to issue Iraq intelligence report

[madokie]

By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060908/ap_on_go_co/iraq_report


WASHINGTON - A Senate analysis of intelligence-gathering activities leading up to the invasion of Iraq is certain to rekindle an election-year debate on the justification of going to war.

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, said the report will confirm that "the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq was fundamentally misleading."

The report to be released by the committee Friday focuses on two much-studied issues: the influence of the anti-Saddam exile group Iraqi National Congress in shaping U.S. intelligence estimates, and a comparison of prewar estimates and postwar findings about Iraq's weapons programs and links to terrorism.

But its release comes at a time when President Bush is speaking out on the importance of victory in Iraq to the war on terrorism, and Democrats are trying to recapture control of Congress by emphasizing the failings of the president's Iraq policy.