Responding to bipartisan criticism of the intelligence that helped spur the United States to attack Iraq, President Bush on Friday appointed seven members to a new commission that will study U.S. intelligence capabilities, including prewar assessments that apparently overstated Iraqi military capabilities.
Charles Robb, a Democrat who has served as governor and a U.S. senator from Virginia, and Laurence Silberman, a Republican who is a retired federal judge, were named co-chairmen of the commission.
“As we move forward in our efforts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, we must stay ahead of constantly changing intelligence challenges,” Bush said at a hastily called briefing at the White House.
“The stakes for our country could not be higher,” the president said with Robb and Silberman at his side.
Bush asked the panel to issue recommendations for improving U.S. intelligence gathering by March 31, 2005, well after the November presidential elections.
The president filled only seven of the nine positions on the panel created Friday to meet a self-imposed deadline. The White House wanted to announce the commission before Bush appears on the NBC Sunday morning show “Meet the Press” to talk about intelligence failures in Iraq and his plans to address them.
Other members on the panel include: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.); Lloyd Cutler, former White House counsel; Richard Levin, president of Yale University; retired Adm. William Studeman, a former deputy CIA director; and Patricia Wald, a former appeals court judge from Washington.
“As we vet and find additional members to fill out the nine,” Bush said, “we will let you know.”
The president said the commission would examine “weapons of mass destruction and related 21st Century threats.” That will include comparing intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq with reports from the ongoing efforts of U.S. weapons inspectors, who have not found the weapons stockpiles that the administration claimed Iraq possessed in the buildup to the invasion last March.
Bush expanded the commission’s agenda to include U.S. intelligence gathering on other countries with nuclear ambitions, including Iran, Libya and North Korea. The panel also will examine operations in Afghanistan, the one-time haven for Al Qaeda.
Democrats who called for an investigation by an independent panel quickly denounced Bush’s commission as inadequate for the job. The president’s inquiry should also look at the way the administration used–or misused–it to justify the invasion, they said.
Bush’s executive order creating the panel was silent on whether the group could look into the use of the intelligence.
“To have a commission appointed exclusively by President Bush investigate his administration’s intelligence failures in Iraq does not inspire confidence in its independence,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Democrats accused Bush of giving the panel a broad mandate and postelection deadline to limit political damage and move the focus away from the case Bush made for quick military action in Iraq, including the claim, since proven erroneous, that Iraq had stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons.
A step in right direction
“While the commission may ultimately perform valuable work on intelligence issues, the president is not allowing it to look into the growing number of questions millions of Americans are asking about the administration’s statements and actions before the Iraq war,” Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said. “That investigation still needs to be done.”
McCain, who joined Democrats in calling for an independent commission, defended the president’s panel as a “wise decision.”
“In our war against terrorism, it is imperative that we guarantee the credibility and effectiveness of our intelligence capabilities,” McCain said. “I will do my very best to help find the answers that the American people have a right to know.”
Michael O’Hanlon, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively on the Iraq war, called the panel’s members “generally a strong group of people who are capable and independent-minded.”
Some on the committee have backgrounds in U.S. intelligence and military policy, including McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Robb, who served on the Senate Intelligence, Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, and Studeman, who in addition to his CIA service was director of the National Security Agency.
But, O’Hanlon said, the panel would have added credibility if Bush appointed an opponent of the war.
Bush initially resisted having a commission investigate prewar intelligence. But he reversed course, appointed the panel and decided to make a potentially risky appearance on “Meet the Press” to regain momentum after a series of setbacks–coupled with ceaseless criticism from the Democratic presidential contenders–drove down his public standing in the polls.
Overwhelming setbacks
Election-year proposals to send astronauts to Mars and rewrite immigration laws have generated little excitement. Bush’s State of the Union address was criticized by Republicans and Democrats as being overtly political and disappointing. Then Bush’s chief weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, resigned Jan. 23 and announced that a 10-month search for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons–the primary rationale given for Bush’s decision to go to war–turned up no evidence of the stockpiles.
That revelation was followed by Secretary of State Colin Powell’s statement–later retracted–that he had doubts about whether the U.S. would have gone to war if it had known earlier that Saddam Hussein did not have unconventional weapons.
CIA Director George Tenet on Thursday delivered another blow when, in an unusual public review of his agency’s work, he said intelligence analysts never portrayed Iraq as an imminent threat prior to the war.
The president announced his appointments at a terse White House briefing, reading a five-minute statement and then leaving without answering questions.
In a declaration likely to become a staple of his re-election campaign, Bush defended his decision to go to war, saying “In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, I will not take risks with the lives and security of the American people by assuming the goodwill of dictators.”
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Committee to investigate intelligence gathering
President Bush announced Friday the creation of a bipartisan panel to investigate intelligence gathering on weapons of mass destruction that was used to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The panel will also look into weapons threats posed by Iran, Libya and North Korea. Results will be reported by March 31, 2005.
SEVEN OF NINE ON INTELLIGENCE PANEL*
Charles Robb, co-chairman.
Former governor of Virginia and former Democratic senator
Judge Laurence Silberman, co-chairman.
Senior judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Repubican
Sen. John McCain.
Arizona Republican who called for Bush to create a panel
Lloyd Cutler.
Former White House counsel to Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill clinton
Richard Levin.
President of Yale University
Retired Adm. William Studman.
A former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Patricia Wald.
A former U.S. Court of Appeals judge.
*Bush will appoint two more in the future.
BRITAIN WILL ALSO INVESTIGATE
British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced an inquiry into prewar Iraq intelligence gathering on Tuesday. British troops were sent to Iraq to support U.S. forces there. Results from that investigation are expected at the end of July.
Chicago Tribune
