The Hindu : Bush sets up intelligence enquiry panel

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 08, 2004

International

International

Bush sets up intelligence enquiry panel

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, FEB. 7. The U.S. President, George W Bush, has appointed a bipartisan commission to enquire into the pre-war assessment of intelligence agencies on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and matters such as terrorism and proliferation. But some leading Democrats are questioning not just the scope of the commission but whether it can be truly independent if all members were chosen by the President.

The former Democratic Senator, Charles Robb — son-in law of the late President Lyndon Johnson — and the retired federal appeals court judge, Laurence Silberman, will be the Co-Chairs of the Commission. Also named to the panel are the Republican Senator, John McCain, Lloyd Cutler, former White House counsel under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, former federal Judge Patricia Wald, the President of Yale University, Richard Levin, and the former Deputy Director of the CIA, William Studeman, as other members. Mr. Bush has the intention to name two more members.

But the choice of a Democrat as one of the Co-Chairs has not satisfied senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill. "We had an opportunity to have a truly independent commission that could have brought fresh eyes to the subject. Instead we have a commission wholly owned by the executive branch investigating the executive branch," said the House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi.

Mr. Bush signed the order on Friday establishing the Commission primarily to examine why banned weapons have not been found in Iraq — the existence of which was the primary reason for going to war last March. American intelligence not only believed that Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons but also a nuclear weapons programme.

Quite recently came the embarrassing news that Iraq had no such weapons stockpiles with the top weapons inspector, David Kay, raising fundamental questions about pre-war intelligence material and assessments.

After hestitating on the subject of an Independent Commission, the White House finally relented knowing full well that the Democrats were not going to tone down their rhetoric; and the issue is not going to disappear from the campaign radar. The only relief is that the panel has now been given time until March 31, 2005 to give its final report, much after the November 2, 2004 elections. "Some pre-war intelligence assessments by America and other nations about Iraq's weapons stockpiles have not been confirmed. We are determined to figure out why," Mr. Bush remarked. But critics say the panel is being mandated to look at intelligence agencies when a lot of the focus should also be on the policy and decision makers on how this intelligence was used.

"On the one hand the commission is charged with looking at pre-war intelligence assessments on Iraq but apparently not on exaggerations of that intelligence by the Bush administration. On the other hand, the commission is tasked to look into so many other areas that it will not be able to adequately focus on the paramount issue of the analysis, production and use of pre-war intelligence in Iraq," said the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin.

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