McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney put "constant" pressure on the Republican former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee to stall an investigation into the Bush administration’s use of flawed intelligence on Iraq, the panel’s Democratic chairman charged Thursday.
In an interview with McClatchy Newspapers, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said it was "not hearsay" that Cheney, a leading proponent of invading Iraq, pushed Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., to drag out the probe.
"It was just constant," Rockefeller said of Cheney’s alleged interference.
Cheney said in response to Rockefeller's charge that he believes Sen. Roberts "was a good chairman" of the Intelligence Committee, spokeswoman Lea McBride said.
Roberts’ chief of staff, Jackie Cottrell, said in an email statement it was Democrats’ fault the investigation remains incomplete more than two years after it was begun.
"Senator Rockefeller's allegations are patently untrue," she said. "The delays came from the Democrats' insistence that they expand the scope of the inquiry to make it a more political document going into the 2006 elections. Chairman Roberts did everything he could to accommodate their requests for further information without allowing them to distort the facts."
Roberts chaired the intelligence committee from January 2003 until the Democrats took over Congress this month.
Rockefeller’s comments were among the most forceful he has made about why the committee failed to complete the inquiry under Roberts.
The panel released a report in July 2004 that lambasted the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies for erroneously concluding that Saddam Hussein was concealing biological, chemical and nuclear warfare programs.
It then began examining how senior Bush administration officials used faulty intelligence to justify the March 2003 invasion...http://tinyurl.com/2akep9 [Open in new window]
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posted by Dan at 5:25 PM
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