Senate Democrats Push for Probe Into Prewar Iraq Intelligence

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Tuesday invoked Rule 21 allowing senators to request the closed session. The public was escorted from the galleries, C-span turned off its cameras and the chamber’s doors were closed for about two hours.

Reid said last week’s indictment of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, highlighted the need for the Senate to examine the administration’s handling of intelligence leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

“The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really about: How the administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions,” Reid said on the Senate floor.

Republicans called the move a political stunt. “The United States Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership,” said Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. “They have no convictions, they have no principles, they have no ideas.”

Democrats accused Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., of stalling phase two of the investigation dealing with how White House officials used, and possibly manipulated, information.

Roberts said his staff has been hard at work and had hoped to conclude that work next week — something he said that Democrats knew. He noted that his staff has interviewed 250 intelligence analysts and asked if they were ever pressured or felt that their conclusions were in any way manipulated. None of the 250 said they were, Roberts said.

In the end, however, Roberts agreed to name three members from each party to assess the state of the committee’s inquiry into prewar intelligence and report back by Nov. 14.

The confrontation revealed deep rifts between the parties, exasperated in recent days by President Bush’s nomination of staunch conservative federal appeals judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

Frist said Reid’s invocation of Rule 21 was nothing more than a publicity stunt, since normally the leadership is warned before such action is taken.

But Sen. John .Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that the move was necessary to push Roberts to a fair inquiry.

The House and Senate each have authority under Article 1 of the Constitution to move into closed sessions. The Senate has held 53 such sessions since 1929, according to the Congressional Research Service, usually to discuss national security matters. Six of the most recent sessions were held during President Clinton’s impeachment trial.