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Senate passes intelligence bill after Democrats back down on presidential briefings, CIA jails
After a stalemate of over two years, the Senate passed the 2008 Intelligence Authorization bill Wednesday, with Democrats ceding a key provision regarding pre-war Iraq intelligence that Republicans had decried.Sources close to the Senate Intelligence Committee say one of the compromises Democrats made to ensure the bills passage was to remove language demanding the White House turn over all Presidential Daily Briefings on Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion. Democrats are said to have been hoping to establish whether President Bush mischaracterized intelligence in the lead-up to the conflict. The provision on the PDBs was dropped because Republicans objected and were blocking consideration of the bill, a Senate source said Wednesday. . . . Another Senate source familiar with the bill said that the Democrats felt this was the only way they could get the bill passed, and avoid yet another failure of intelligence oversight. Democrats also dropped a demand for the Director of Central Intelligence to identify and hand over documentation related to secret prisons run by the US government around the world and operations involving extraordinary rendition. . . . Another provision removed from the bill was a requirement for the Intelligence Community to study the effects of climate change on national security. . . . Bet this'll go over well with the "netroots."
Posted by: Mike 2007-10-05 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=201407 |