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Dems (Finally) Take a Stand on War Intelligence

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. Posted November 3, 2005.


The closed session invoked by Harry Reid yesterday was much more than a partisan tactic. It is the first step in telling the public what really happened to lead us into war.
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The issue of pre-war intelligence remains in the spotlight with last week's indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby over the CIA leak case. Shortly before forcing the closed session, Democratic Senate Minority leader Harry Reid said, "The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about, how this administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions." He then invoked a little-used Rule 21 to request the closed session:

Mr. President, enough time has gone by. I demand on behalf of the American people that we understand why these investigations aren't being conducted, and in accordance with Rule 21, I now move that the Senate go into closed session.

The Senate stopped work on legislation. The public was forced to leave the chamber. The doors were closed. The lights dimmed. C-SPAN coverage was also turned off for the session, which lasted over two hours. The move marked the first time in 25 years one party has closed the Senate to the public without consulting the other party. Republicans dismissed the move as a political stunt. It provoked a sharp public confrontation between the leadership of both parties. This is what Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said to reporters:

Democrats use scare tactics. They have no conviction, they have no principles, they have no ideas, but this is the ultimate. Since I have been Majority Leader, I'll have to say, not with the previous Democratic leader or the current Democratic leader have ever I been slapped in the face with such an affront to the leadership of this grand institution.

Frist went on to say, quote, "For the next year-and-a-half, I can't trust Senator Reid." Reid later responded to Frist's comments:

It's a slap in the face to the American people that this has been -- this investigation has been stymied, stopped, obstructions thrown up every step of the way. That's the real slap in the face. That's the slap in the face, and today, the American people are going to see a little bit of light.

In the end, lawmakers agreed to name three members from each party to assess the state of the Intelligence Committee's inquiry into prewar intelligence and report back by November 14. Back in June 2003, when it became increasingly apparent that no weapons of mass destruction were being found in Iraq, Republicans on the Intelligence Committee initially resisted calls to investigate the administration's WMD claims. Finally in February 2004, they agreed to a two-step investigation.

In July 2004, the committee issued the first phase of its bipartisan report, which found the U.S. intelligence community had assembled a deeply flawed and exaggerated assessment of Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities. The second phase was to focus on the administration's deliberations over the intelligence or how it was used. Democrats say there's been little examination of these topics to date.

We're joined now by Robert Parry. He is a veteran investigative journalist, for years worked for both the Associated Press and Newsweek magazine. His reporting led to the exposure of what's now called the Iran-Contra scandal. He is author of the book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq. Scott Armstrong also joins us in Washington, Executive Director of the Information Trust. He is a former reporter for the Washington Post. He founded the National Security Archive and was a senior investigator for the Senate Watergate Committee. We welcome you both to Democracy Now!, and we begin with Scott Armstrong. Scott, can you talk about this very rare move in the Senate to close out the public, one party, the Democrats, surprising the other, demanding a closed session?

Scott Armstrong: Well, it really was quite dramatic for what we have come to expect from the Senate Democrats, or for that matter, from any Democrats. After having voted for the war in March of 2003, they began to ask questions about the quality of intelligence and basically were held off. They got this study done, but the study didn't really get into what the administration had done with the intelligence, just the flaws within the intelligence. The Scooter Libby case has given them the opportunity to say, 'Now there's evidence on the record that there were some unusual things going on, and the doctoring of intelligence, the piecing together and knitting together of very sparse intelligence, and we want to have the rest of this report, which has been put off because of the 2004 election.' They want to get it, and they want to get it soon.


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Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program Democracy Now!

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"...democrats have no principles..."
Posted by: adp3d on Nov 3, 2005 4:13 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This coming from Dr. Remote Video sell my stocks from my company business and if the SEC catches wind of it we'll say we didn't know anything about it and that it is a politically motivated investigation besides...these bastards make me sick. Delay, Cheney, Brownie, Chertoff, Bauer, Mehlman, Judy Miller, Abramoff, Jed B., Ofuckin'Reilly, Limbaugh, Liddy, ...I tell ya its a party of crooks...

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covering up what we already knew
Posted by: menckenman on Nov 3, 2005 4:56 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
How long can they keep covering? Millions of people knew this was a fabricated war before it started. Now its all about how intelligence was hidden and manipulated, and then that manipulation was manipulated by Scooter, and now his lawyers are hiding what, in essence, we all knew when the troop build-up began and the inspectors pulled.

Underneath all the covers are war criminals.

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Transparent Government?
Posted by: cstriker on Nov 3, 2005 6:25 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Can someone give me a really good reason and example of why we can't or shouldn't have transparent government?

In my opinion there is no reason in the world why our government shouldn't be total transparent. There are no honest issues of national security that couldn't stand up to world wide scrutiny and still allow us defense of our nation. The only place that I can see for any kind of restriction is in military strategy and the government that we elect should not be involved in that except to say we are going to war and investigations of the military after the fact (called learning from mistakes).

Really, If I lie to my wife about screwing some bimbo that's and outright lie. If I don't tell my wife I'm screwing some bimbo, what's the difference? There is no foolproof way to ensure that she could never find out. It would be living a lie. The U.S. government is living that lie by not being transparent. If what they are doing is truely just and forthright then there is nothing to hide.

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» RE: Transparent Government? Posted by: goldennugget
» RE: Transparent Government? Posted by: cstriker
» RE: Transparent Government? Posted by: goldennugget
» RE: Transparent Government? Posted by: cstriker
» RE: Transparent Government? Posted by: goldennugget
» RE: Transparent Government? Posted by: cstriker
» RE: Transparent Government? Posted by: monkeywrench
» RE: Transparent Government? Posted by: cstriker
yup
Posted by: esactun on Nov 3, 2005 11:13 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You got it, Monekywrench. Average Joe and Jane don't give a flying rat's ass about the majority of what really peeves our progressive colleagues--and this includes issues they *should* care about and that *do* affect them personally, not just the arcane "just politics" sort of thing.

However, just ask any former Ninth Ward resident whether national politics affects people as individuals. Ask any former soldier missing a limb thanks to IEDs. Ask anyone who's stuck in a life of indebted servitude thanks to the Bush Economy and bankruptcy elimination (er I meant 'reform').

Not only does Bush ruin lives, he then makes it impossible for anyone to even hope to regain what they lost.

What an evil little a**hole he is. Amazing.

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For months a lot of you have said the Democrats are useless
Posted by: ShaSpirit on Nov 3, 2005 11:18 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
So the leader of the Senate Minority does a closed door session and people are bad mouthing them for finally speaking up dramatically. They got your attention did they? How many of you sent Henry Reed a thank you note with a list of what you want him and the democrats to do now? I did and I set one to every senate member that I know has stood up for the American people in the past. They are the only game in town. You want impeachment, then they will have to vote into law. If they get enough letters they will feel they can act without the people rejecting them.

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this is still just losing ground to the whole thing
Posted by: nerkles on Nov 3, 2005 11:25 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There is a logic to this which says, "If all that stuff about WMD's had been true, then killing 100,000 Iraqis would have been OK."

It's still not taking a stand against the war itself.

It's not acceptable, and people need to let go of the illusion that there will be some savior from the Dem party to put a stop to this madness. It ain't gonna happen.

This is too little, too late, people. We need to drive this regime out. Bush needs to SHUT UP, STEP DOWN, and take his whole program with him, and it's up to us to make that happen.

worldcantwait.org !!!

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Boston Tea Party 2005?
Posted by: churchofone on Nov 3, 2005 12:28 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Is the Senate's lockout the catalyst to create the political change that is needed? If the investigation is stonewalled again, will they be able to repeat the effort?

Or perhaps wider action by citizens? One of the postings in the archives talks about the need for a general "strike" across the nation by workers and students and public servants. It struck me as a contemporary version of the Boston Tea Party.

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» RE: Boston Tea Party 2005? Posted by: cstriker
I don't want to kill the goose that laid...
Posted by: sgtmartin1 on Nov 3, 2005 1:51 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the golden egg, but it is really quite a statement to make that the Libby indictment opened the door toward an examination of the run-up to starting an unprovoked war based on lies.

One would have hoped the mechanics of a functional democracy would have demanded it.

If memory serves, that was the sort of thing that hastened the demise of the empire formerly know as the USSR.

I hope we fare better.

New on EWM: Kevin Bacon to play Libby in upcoming “Six Degrees of Scooter”
It’s ‘Dumb and Dumber’ meets ‘All the President’s Men.’

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