From the New York Times
Source
Bush to Establish Panel to Examine U.S. Intelligence
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: February 2, 2004
W ASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — President Bush will establish a bipartisan commission in the next few days to examine American intelligence operations, including a study of possible misjudgments about Iraq's unconventional weapons, senior administration officials said Sunday. They said the panel would also investigate failures to penetrate secretive governments and stateless groups that could attempt new attacks on the United States.
The president's decision came after a week of rising pressure on the White House from both Democrats and many ranking Republicans to deal with what the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee has called "egregious" errors that overstated Iraq's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and made the country appear far closer to developing nuclear weapons than it actually was.
Mr. Bush's agreement to set up a commission to study the Iraq intelligence failures was first reported Sunday by The Washington Post. The officials described the commission Mr. Bush will create as a broader examination of American intelligence shortcomings — from Iran to North Korea to Libya — of which the Iraqi experience was only a part.
The pressure to establish such a panel became irresistible after David A. Kay, the former chief weapons inspector, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that "it turns out we were all wrong, probably," about the perceived Iraqi threat, which was the administration's basic justification for the war.
The commission will not report back until after the November elections. Some former officials who have been approached about taking part say they believe it may take 18 months or more to reach its conclusions.
"It became clear to the president that he couldn't sit there and seem uninterested in the fact that the Iraq intel went off the rails," said one senior official involved in the discussions. "He had to do something, and he chose to enlarge the problem, beyond the Iraq experience."
White House officials said the president was still completing a list of who would serve on the commission, expected to have about nine members. Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, said Sunday that they were talking to "very distinguished statesmen and women, who have served their country and who have been users of intelligence, or served in a gathering capacity." Among those who have been consulted, officials say, is Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser under Mr. Bush's father. Mr. Scowcroft, who was a harsh critic of the process by which the current president decided to go to war, is currently the head of a foreign intelligence advisory board and it is unclear if he will play a role in the new commission.
Mr. Bush's effort is intended to put the study into a broader context — the retooling of American intelligence-gathering for a new era of terrorism and nuclear proliferation by rogue scientists and countries that may pass weapons into the hands of groups like Al Qaeda. But it is far from clear that those steps will insulate him from Democrats' charges that the White House tried to manipulate the Iraq intelligence to justify the March invasion.
Nor is it clear whether the commission's broader mandate will keep it from delving too deeply into the specific failures by the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies in the case of Iraq. Mr. Bush has been trying to avoid identifying individuals or agencies responsible for the Iraq failures. Senior administration officials concede they do not want to risk further alienating the C.I.A. or the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet.
In interviews on Sunday, White House officials rejected direct comparisons to the commission that is examining the intelligence failures surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks, or the commission that issued a blistering critique of NASA after the Columbia disaster a year ago. Instead, a senior White House official said Sunday afternoon, Mr. Bush intends to order a look "at the global security challenges of the 21st century."
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Source
Bush to Establish Panel to Examine U.S. Intelligence
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: February 2, 2004
W ASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — President Bush will establish a bipartisan commission in the next few days to examine American intelligence operations, including a study of possible misjudgments about Iraq's unconventional weapons, senior administration officials said Sunday. They said the panel would also investigate failures to penetrate secretive governments and stateless groups that could attempt new attacks on the United States.
The president's decision came after a week of rising pressure on the White House from both Democrats and many ranking Republicans to deal with what the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee has called "egregious" errors that overstated Iraq's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and made the country appear far closer to developing nuclear weapons than it actually was.
Mr. Bush's agreement to set up a commission to study the Iraq intelligence failures was first reported Sunday by The Washington Post. The officials described the commission Mr. Bush will create as a broader examination of American intelligence shortcomings — from Iran to North Korea to Libya — of which the Iraqi experience was only a part.
The pressure to establish such a panel became irresistible after David A. Kay, the former chief weapons inspector, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that "it turns out we were all wrong, probably," about the perceived Iraqi threat, which was the administration's basic justification for the war.
The commission will not report back until after the November elections. Some former officials who have been approached about taking part say they believe it may take 18 months or more to reach its conclusions.
"It became clear to the president that he couldn't sit there and seem uninterested in the fact that the Iraq intel went off the rails," said one senior official involved in the discussions. "He had to do something, and he chose to enlarge the problem, beyond the Iraq experience."
White House officials said the president was still completing a list of who would serve on the commission, expected to have about nine members. Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, said Sunday that they were talking to "very distinguished statesmen and women, who have served their country and who have been users of intelligence, or served in a gathering capacity." Among those who have been consulted, officials say, is Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser under Mr. Bush's father. Mr. Scowcroft, who was a harsh critic of the process by which the current president decided to go to war, is currently the head of a foreign intelligence advisory board and it is unclear if he will play a role in the new commission.
Mr. Bush's effort is intended to put the study into a broader context — the retooling of American intelligence-gathering for a new era of terrorism and nuclear proliferation by rogue scientists and countries that may pass weapons into the hands of groups like Al Qaeda. But it is far from clear that those steps will insulate him from Democrats' charges that the White House tried to manipulate the Iraq intelligence to justify the March invasion.
Nor is it clear whether the commission's broader mandate will keep it from delving too deeply into the specific failures by the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies in the case of Iraq. Mr. Bush has been trying to avoid identifying individuals or agencies responsible for the Iraq failures. Senior administration officials concede they do not want to risk further alienating the C.I.A. or the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet.
In interviews on Sunday, White House officials rejected direct comparisons to the commission that is examining the intelligence failures surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks, or the commission that issued a blistering critique of NASA after the Columbia disaster a year ago. Instead, a senior White House official said Sunday afternoon, Mr. Bush intends to order a look "at the global security challenges of the 21st century."
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