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Roberts says Dem strategy memo undermines 9-11 inquiry
Update to last night’s Post
Republican Sen. Pat Roberts said Democrats have undermined the inquiry he is leading into Iraq prewar intelligence by drafting a memo aimed at discrediting the Senate Intelligence Committee’s work. The Kansan is chairman of the committee. The memo was written by Democratic committee staff and wasn’t finalized or circulated among members of the committee, said the panel’s senior Democrat, West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller.
Never saw it, nope, nuh huh....
Rockefeller acknowledged the document after news reports quoted excerpts from it. The memo spells out steps to make the committee’s inquiry irrelevant by setting up an independent commission, and in the process attempt to "castigate" majority Republicans. It suggested "pulling the trigger" on the plan "probably next year." Roberts said the memo stunned him.
someone that naive shouldn’t be in politics
"I am shocked! SHOCKED!"
He's about as stunned as I'm virginal. He's making his own political points.
"It’s like a personal slap in the face," he said. "I’m very frustrated by it. We cannot politicize the committee. No member of the intelligence community wants to come up and testify before a committee that is whipsawed by politics. In addition, once this becomes public, or more public, every intelligence agency in the world will take note of it. And quite frankly, I think this will give some comfort to terrorists. We have to put back together some semblance of a bipartisan committee."
I like the "comfort to terrorists" counterpunch... maybe he isn’t that naive...
Roberts and Rockefeller have been overseeing an often rocky review of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction that the White House used to justify the war on Iraq. The two men met Tuesday after Roberts learned of the memo. In a statement he issued afterward, Rockefeller dismissed the memo as "likely taken from a waste basket or through unauthorized computer access."
nice effort Jay - about as good as your FoxNewsSunday interview effort
He added: "The draft memo was not approved, nor was it shared with any member of the Senate Intelligence Committee or anyone else.
it was a secret, in fact nobody wrote it... it wrote itself
"Having said that, the memo clearly reflects staff frustration with the conduct of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation and the difficulties of obtaining information from the administration."
"So, y'see, even though it wasn't signed off on, and thus didn't really exist, if it had existed, it woulda been because we're so frustrated widda Publican obstructionism..."
He said that exploring or asserting the rights of the committee’s Democratic minority doesn’t politicize the process. "The American people deserve a full accounting of why we sent our sons and daughters into war," Rockefeller said.
I seem to remember a couple votes you participated in, asshat
Democrats and Republicans alike have complained the White House, the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department have been slow to respond to requests for interviews and documents. The White House missed a Friday deadline for complying, and while Roberts announced over the weekend the White House agreed to cooperate, he subsequently backed away and said he spoke too hastily. Roberts called on committee Democrats to repudiate the strategy outlined in the memo. "It’s a purely partisan document that appears to be a road map for how the Democrats intend to politicize what should be a bipartisan, objective review of pre-war intelligence," he said. "Instead, we should be focusing on how to make our country safer and how to improve our intelligence capabilities."
Agreed, and the White House needs to turn over all documents that don’t endanger efforts at improving nat’l security. The Dems will be on their heels with this memo, don’t help them out
Posted by: Frank G 2003-11-05
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=20821