Senate Intelligence chairman quietly 'fixed' intelligence, and diverted blame from White House over

[133724]

Larisa Alexandrovna

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush issued an order to the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, and his cabinet members that severely curtailed intelligence oversight by restricting classified information to just eight members of Congress.

<snip>

But what was said to be an effort to protect the United States became a tool by which the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Pat Roberts (R-KS) ensured there was no serious investigation into how the administration fixed the intelligence that took the United States to war in Iraq or the fabricated documents used as evidence to do so.

Coupled with limited access to intelligence documents, RAW STORY has found that Roberts and a handful of other strategically-placed Washington players stymied all questions into pre-war intelligence on Iraq and post-invasion cover-ups, including the outing of a CIA covert agent, by using targeted leaks and artfully deflecting blame from the White House.

The Senate and House intelligence committees were created in the 1970s after a series of congressional investigations found that the CIA had acted like a "rogue elephant" carrying out illegal covert action abroad.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/HowSenate_Intelligence_chairman_fixed_intelligence_and_diverted_blame_fromWhite_House__0811.html

[Captain Hilts]

1. Roberts needs to be officially censured for sub-verting his own committee's work. nt

[Hubert Flottz]

14. No, he should be deported to Iraq to stand trial.

[emulatorloo]

2. That's why I call him Senator "Pat" Cover-Up Roberts . . . thnks Larissa

excellent article -- Kick and rec

Some background reading

http://thinkprogress.org/roberts-coverup
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS): Chairman of the Senate Cover-up Committee

As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen. Pat Roberts’s (R-KS) duty is “to provide vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States” and “to assure that such activities are in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States.” But on the most important intelligence issues facing Americans – such as the manipulation of Iraq intelligence, warrantless domestic spying, and torture - Roberts has transformed his committee into a “Senate Coverup Committee” for the Bush administration.


More at link

[Auntie Bush]

13. Pat should be incarcerated for failing to protect his country. What a traitor!

It was his JOB for pete's sake! I certainly hope he would lose his pension under the new rules!

[Rex]

3. Just like the 9/11 'investigation'.

Ya know...the BFEE can cover their tracks for only so long. The magnitude of these crimes will eventually be revealed. The executive branch can only go so far or at least that is my hope.

[jimshoes]

4. Sure would like to see this covered

on the 6:00 news. The one Grandma and most Americans watch. Especially the part about how the WH fixed the intelligence to take us into an unnecessary war.

[BuyingThyme]

5. This is a little premature. He'll get around to it.

:rofl:

[Benhurst]

6. None dare call it treason.

But treason it is. Roberts et al should be indicted.

[fooj]

8. He's nothing but a treasonous, rat bastard!

We've known that all along.

[indepat]

9. Just think of how many seemingly treasonous rat-bastard complices were necessary to

orchestrate and cover up what's gone down in last five years.

[blm]

22. Many of us WERE calling it treason when he refused investigation of Downing Street Memos

and only ten senators even signed the letter of inquiry that simply demanded they Senate Intel Committee DO ITS JOB.

[lyonn]

7. Yup, get out the subpoenas. Thanks n/t

[Nabia2004]

10. k&r

[banana republican]

11. . K&R

[TacticalPeek]

12. Roberts is the most despicable member of Congress.

The lying, scuzzy bastard has blood on his hands.

:grr:

[Hubert Flottz]

15. John Warner is just as bad!

McCain too!

[Blackhatjack]

16. His resignation from the Committee said it all.....

He would have to sit and listen to real questions being asked, and then members would have turned to him constantly and say you knew all this and interfered with this Committee's attempts to get to the bottom of this?

He decided to take the back door and exit the Committee, rather than take a seat and face all of this condemnation.

[Felinity]

18. Can he be called as a witness?

Has the Senate ever called another sitting Senator to answer, under oath, questions about how he chose to do his job in the prior Congress.

That would be good TV.

How big a deposit do you think they made to his Swiss Bank Account? (Yeah, yeah he was just too loyal, but loyalty doesn't come cheap).

[donkeyotay]

17. He's one ot the GOPers that transformed loyalty from a virtue to a flaw

They were supposed to carry out the duties of their offices faithfully, and instead they used their offices to catapult the neocon agenda. It was a conspiracy. They abused their offices and their power, not to carry out their statutory duties and uphold the law of the land and the Constitution, but to carry forth the Likud's strategy for power in the middle east, a strategy that the private contractors and oil men also adopted. They couldn't get their polices adopted by democratic means, so they subverted our system. The ends justify the means, and the GOP declared war against America so long ago, they didn't even notice that the cultural war had become a de facto war against America. There should be mass impeachment. Orange jumpsuits. Trials. The idea that all this could be done to our country and the congress just wants to move on.... there must be justice.

[Doondoo]

19. K&R

[WilliamPitt]

20. For background: my interview with Ray McGovern on Roberts in 2003

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/062603B.shtml

(snip)

PITT: During the Clinton administration, if there was going to be an investigation into something, it was going to come out of the House of Representatives. What would your assessment of the situation be at this point?

McG: It doesn?t take a crackerjack analyst. Take Pat Roberts, the Republican Senator from Kansas, who is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. When the Niger forgery was unearthed and when Colin Powell admitted, well shucks, it was a forgery, Senator Jay Rockefellar, the ranking Democrat on that committee, went to Pat Roberts and said they really needed the FBI to take a look at this. After all, this was known to be a forgery and was still used on Congressmen and Senators. We?d better get the Bureau in on this. Pat Roberts said no, that would be inappropriate. So Rockefellar drafted his own letter, and went back to Roberts and said he was going to send the letter to FBI Director Mueller, and asked if Roberts would sign on to it. Roberts said no, that would be inappropriate.

What the FBI Director eventually got was a letter from one Minority member saying pretty please, would you maybe take a look at what happened here, because we think there may have been some skullduggery. The answer he got from the Bureau was a brush-off. Why do I mention all that? This is the same Pat Roberts who is going to lead the investigation into what happened with this issue.

There is a lot that could be said about Pat Roberts. I remember way back last fall when people were being briefed, CIA and others were briefing Congressmen and Senators about the weapons of mass destruction. These press folks were hanging around outside the briefing room, and when the Senators came out, one of the press asked Senator Roberts how the evidence on weapons of mass destruction was. Roberts said, oh, it was very persuasive, very persuasive.

The press guy asked Roberts to tell him more about that. Roberts said, ?Truck A was observed to be going under Shed B, where Process C is believed to be taking place.? The press guy asked him if he found that persuasive, and Pat Roberts said, ?Oh, these intelligence folks, they have these techniques down so well, so yeah, this is very persuasive.? And the correspondent said thank you very much, Senator.

So, if you?ve got a Senator who is that inclined to believe that kind of intelligence, you?ve got someone who will do the administration?s bidding. On the House side, of course, you?ve got Porter Goss, who is a CIA alumnus. Porter Goss? main contribution last year to the joint committee investigating 9/11 was to sic the FBI on members of that committee, at the direction of who? Dick Cheney. Goss admits this. He got a call from Dick Cheney, and he was ?chagrined? in Goss? word that he was upbraided by Dick Cheney for leaks coming out of the committee. He then persuaded the innocent Bob Graham to go with him to the FBI and ask the Bureau to investigate the members of that committee. Polygraphs and everything were involved. That?s the first time something like that has ever happened.

Be aware, of course, that Congress has its own investigative agencies, its own ways of investigating things like that. So without any regard for the separation of powers, here Goss says Cheney is bearing down on me, so let?s get the FBI in here. In this case, ironically enough, the FBI jumped right in with Ashcroft whipping it along. They didn?t come up with much, but the precedent was just terrible.

All I?m saying is that you?ve got Porter Goss on the House side, you?ve got Pat Roberts on the Senate side, you?ve got John Warner who?s a piece with Pat Roberts. I?m very reluctant to be so unequivocal, but in this case I can say nothing is going to come out of those hearings but a lot of smoke.

[happydreams]

21. Can we say Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy already?