From the New York Times:
...The Senate Intelligence Committee was supposed to answer that question years ago by comparing what officials claimed about Iraq — its missing weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s hyped ties with Al Qaeda — with what they knew.
Senator Pat Roberts, the former Republican chairman, tried to make sure the report never was completed. The current Democratic chairman, Senator John Rockefeller IV, is expected to finally issue it next week. We’ll be interested to see how Scott McClellan comes across.
Senator John Rockefeller is 'on the record' stating the Executive Branch has threatened Senate and House leaders in the use of their powers in exposing what is 'the truth' but classified as 'secret war documents.' To claim that the blame now shifts to a Senate Intelligence Committee in the face of blatant confessions and abuse of power by the Executive Branch is as hideous as it comes and WON'T work !!!!
By ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com
MIAMI HERALD FILE
Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer, the author of five best-sellers on Latin American affairs, will be hosting a live chat at 1 p.m. on Thursday.
Bravo! A new study has found widespread fear-mongering and reckless journalism by cable television hosts such as CNN's Lou Dobbs and Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, who have made a career of bashing Hispanic undocumented immigrants and their home countries.
Also good news: Likely Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama told me in an interview last week that he shares concerns ''about the anti-immigrant tenor that I have seen in some of the broadcasts,'' which are helping create a climate of hatred against Hispanics.
The study by Media Matters Action Network, a watchdog group, says Dobbs, O'Reilly and CNN's Glenn Beck serve up steady anger, resentment and myths ``seemingly geared toward creating anti-immigrant hysteria.''...
Published: July 10, 2004
Excerpts from opening statements of Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, vice chairman of the committee, at a news conference on Friday, as recorded by Federal News Service Inc., and the text of the committee's report: Comments by Senator Roberts
A year ago, the Senate Committee on Intelligence made a commitment to the Congress and the American people that we should examine the quality and the quantity of intelligence that led to the war in Iraq. Now, the debate over many aspects of the United States liberation of Iraq will likely continue for decades, but one fact is now clear: before the war, the United States intelligence community told the president, as well as the Congress and the public, that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and if left unchecked, would probably have a nuclear weapon during this decade. Well, today we know these assessments were wrong, and as our inquiry will show, they were also unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available intelligence. The report the committee is releasing today seeks to explain how that happened....
