Press Releases
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, made the following comments concerning Democrat additional views on the release of two of the Committee’s “Phase II” reports on prewar intelligence about Iraq:
“The additional views of the Committee's Democrats are little more than a rehashing of the same unfounded allegations they've used for over three years,” Roberts said. “They echoed the same themes in their additional views in the Committee’s 2004 report. Their effort represents a misuse of the Intelligence Committee by careful cherry-picking through the intelligence and the facts in a political attempt to rewrite history.
“The long known fact is that the prewar intelligence was wrong. That flawed intelligence was used by policymakers, both in the administration and in Congress, as one of numerous justifications to go to war in Iraq. The same intelligence was collectively believed and used, leading to the same assertive public statements regarding the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
“It is interesting, but not surprising, that my Democrat colleagues have chosen to highlight Administration statements. They don’t, however, seem interested in analyzing their own statements with the same zeal. Here are a few examples:
- “There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next 5 years.” – Vice Chairman John Rockefeller, Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, September 25, 2002.
- “When you look at what Saddam Hussein has at his disposal, in terms of chemical, biological, and perhaps even nuclear weapons, we cannot ignore the threat that he poses to the region and the fact that he has fomented terrorism throughout his reign.”– Senator Dick Durbin, CNN's Larry King Live, "The Hunt for Bin Laden Intensifies; What is to be done with John Walker?," December 21, 2001.
“Did my colleagues mislead the American public? No, they merely made statements based upon the intelligence they reviewed.
“These additional views demonstrate to me that Phase II has become a political exercise. The views have little to do with the facts in the two reports which were released. The reports are little more than a vehicle to advance election year political charges. That is not the purpose for which the Intelligence Committees were created, and just as important, it distracts us from the work we should be doing.
“Unfortunately, my colleagues continue to use the Committee to try and rewrite history insisting that they were deliberately duped into supporting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. That is simply not true and I believe the American people are smart enough to recognize election year politicking when they see it.
“Rather than perpetuating an ongoing effort to rewrite history, the Committee should be focusing all of its resources on a host of troubling issues: monitoring Intelligence Community reforms, balancing acquisition requirements with budgetary constraints, correcting the flawed tradecraft which led to the Iraq intelligence failure, and assessing collection and analysis of intelligence on Iran, North Korea, and al-Qaida.
“The facts are clear – the prewar assessments of Iraq’s WMD programs were a tragic intelligence failure. However, instead of focusing on the implementation of reforms and on current and future threats, Intelligence Committee Democrats remain obsessed with looking backwards at statements and actions that occurred over four years ago. n behalf of national security, the Committee needs to and must extricate itself from what has become a time-consuming and unnecessary effort and return to forward-looking oversight of the nation’s Intelligence Community.”
For text of the full report please visit: http://intelligence.senate.gov/
