| |
 |
| June 5th, 2008 |
|
Media Contact(s): Mark Eddington or Lindsey Stimpson, (202) 224-5251 |
[  ] Listen to Radio Clip |
Printable Version |
|
|
HATCH AND GOP COLLEAGUES SCOLD DEMOCRATS FOR PARTISAN REPORT ON IRAQ PREWAR INTELLIGENCE
|
| |
WASHINGTON – Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) joined GOP colleagues on the Senate Intelligence Committee today in scolding Democrats for playing election-year politics with the final two reports about prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Hatch joined Committee Vice Chairman Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri and Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia in chiding Democrats on the committee for distorting the reports in a misguided and ironic effort to make the Bush administration appear to have twisted prewar intelligence to mislead the nation into going to war.
“Today’s reports are the results of partisan wrangling and deliberately incomplete presentation,” Hatch said. “They are the pathetic end of a desperate search to provide any basis for the bumper sticker ‘Bush Lied, People Died.’ For those of you who are going to read through both of these documents, I offer some helpful medical advice: Make sure to take your irony supplements.”
Hatch said the Phase II reports represented a significant and sad departure from the Phase I report the Senate Intelligence Committee released in July 2004. He called the 2004 report, which concluded prewar intelligence on Iraq was bad, “a historic document that will take its place in the annals of intelligence reform. It was, in my opinion, the most serious investigation conducted on an intelligence failure in the history of this committee.”
In blasting the sequel, GOP members on the committee chastised their Democratic counterparts for refusing to allow them to introduce amendments to the reports. They further pointed out members of the Majority party voted the Phase II reports out of committee on April Fools’ Day.
“See what happens when you don’t take your irony supplements,” Hatch remarked.
Moreover, the Republican committee members noted, their Democratic colleagues who drafted the report focused solely on statements made by members of the Bush administration during the run-up to the war and ruled out statements made by members of Congress, who had and relied on the same prewar intelligence and made similar statements.
“Seventy-seven members of the Senate voted for authorization for war on Iraq, including 30 members of the current Majority party,” Hatch said.
During the press conference, Bond’s office distributed copies of remarks Senate Democrats made before the war, including remarks Committee Chairman Sen. John Rockefeller made in 2002 that were taken from the Congressional Record.
“There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years,” Rockefeller said prior to his vote authorizing the use of military force.
Bond, Hatch and Chambliss said such quotes illustrate that members of Congress also made statements that were corroborated by intelligence later shown to be flawed – flaws extensively exposed in the committee’s 2004 report on intelligence failures. Members of Congress cannot hide behind a claim to have been misled by intelligence now, according to Hatch.
The policy to go to war in Iraq was based on much more than intelligence, Hatch added. The final Phase II report on Statement failed, in part, to be credible or insightful because committee Democrats refused to interview policymakers in the Bush administration to determine how much they relied on intelligence.
“These reports wholly missed opportunities to inform Congress and the public about the roles and limits intelligence plays in the deliberative policy making process in a Democratic society,” Hatch said.
|
| |
| ### |
| |
| |
| |
|
|
