Probe turns to White House

[floda]

SENATE PANEL TO EXAMINE PREWAR CLAIMS BY BUSH, OTHERS

By Greg Miller

Los Angeles Times


WASHINGTON - After releasing its devastating report on Iraq intelligence failures, the Senate Intelligence Committee is forging ahead on a much more politically sensitive follow-up investigation that will examine prewar statements by President Bush and other administration officials.

Members of the Senate panel have been asked by the committee chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., to submit lists of claims made by White House officials and other policy-makers that will be scrubbed to determine whether they were exaggerated or were unsupported by intelligence assessments available before the war.

Also as part of a second phase of its probe, the committee has collected dozens of documents and conducted detailed interviews about a controversial intelligence unit set up at the Pentagon that challenged CIA conclusions that Iraq was not collaborating with Al-Qaida, according to congressional sources familiar with the investigation.

In addition, Senate investigators are beginning to compile evidence for a probe of the role of the Iraqi National Congress in building the case for war. INC leader Ahmed Chalabi had close ties to a number of senior Bush administration officials before the relationship soured amid recent allegations that Chalabi leaked American secrets to Iran. The INC also has been accused of funneling flawed intelligence to the United States as part of a decade-long campaign to oust Saddam Hussein.

more...

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/9129573.htm

[ixion]

1. They need to see that info clearing house video...

that pretty much sums it up, I think.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6423.htm

[Disturbed]

2. Ahmed Chalabi

He has admitted that the intell from him and his con artists was bogus and called himself and them "Heroes in error".

The Office of Special Plans started by Rumsfailed and much supported by Cheney attempted to nueter and subvert the CIA. This commitee is fairly much of a white wash as was the 911 Commision. Most of Congress no longer represents the Amerikan people. It represents the Plutocracy.

[Cooley Hurd]

3. Karen Kwiatkowski's latest article says it all...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski82.html

<snip>
The CIA is the predominant intelligence agency, and the Director has authority over the whole shooting match. The community contains 15 different intelligence collecting organizations, over half of which belong to the Department of Defense. 80% of all intelligence funding is spent – and apparently wasted – by the Pentagon.

Thanks to a convenient reorganization by the all-knowing and also wild-eyed Secretary Rumsfeld, this consolidation of budget and product has been further stovepiped into an even more politically manageable entity, the Defense Under Secretary for Intelligence. The office is currently staffed by neoconservative loyalist and Claremont Institute alumni Stephen Cambone and his deputy, Bible-thumping warmonger General "Jerry" Boykin.

One wonders how long the rush to lay the blame in a neat package on the CIA corporate culture doorstep will distract the media from the obvious. With 80% of the cash, 80% of the blame may well flow to the Pentagon. But maybe, just maybe, the Pentagon will be OK.
</snip>