Reply #15: What about the WMD review panel appointed earlier this year? [View All]

[Cooley Hurd]

The one with Crazy Larry Silberman and Chuck Robb in it?

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/708/

Features > February 19, 2004
Faulty Intelligence
By Nat Parry

The commission appointed by President George W. Bush to look into WMD-related “intelligence failures” can be considered “independent” only if the word now means “subordinated and allied.” The members lack the expertise required to uncover what really went wrong, and their limited mandate sidesteps the central question: Did the administration hype intelligence reports to march the United States into war?

Rather than allowing Congress to name the members and determine the scope of their investigation, the intelligence commission was established by executive fiat and is a mixture of centrists and right-wing ideologues—suggesting that Bush is less concerned with unraveling the Iraq fiasco than deflecting criticism until after the November elections.

Co-chairmen are Laurence Silberman, a retired appeals court judge appointed to the bench by Ronald Reagan, and Charles Robb, the moderate former governor and senator from Virginia. Other members are: John McCain, who called for the commission’s formation but advocated that it report back after November; Lloyd Cutler, legal counsel for two Democratic administrations; Richard Levin, president of Yale University, alma mater of the Bush clan; Patricia Wald, former chief judge of the D.C. Court of Appeals; and Adm. William Studeman, former deputy director of Central Intelligence and the only appointee with a solid knowledge of intelligence matters.
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That commission's been just gangbusters, hasn't it?