Ducking the Hard Stuff

Last week, shortly after John McCain's universally panned "green screen" speech, the Senate Intelligence Committee released the long-awaited Phase II of its report on how the White House suckered everyone into supporting the invasion of Iraq. This phase was originally going to be released in 2004, but the Republicans refused to do so to protect President Bush's re-election campaign. Then it was supposed to be released by 2006, but the GOP again stonewalled, this time to protect the party's hopes in the midterm Congressional elections.

And so now we have Phase II in the electronic flesh. The results are pretty damning:

Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa'ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa'ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.

Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.

Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.

Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community's uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.

The Secretary of Defense's statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.

The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.

But it is now apparent that the Senate ducked some of the really hard questions. It appears that back when the GOP controlled the process, they deliberately limited the scope of the probe to as not to look into the White House's inner workings. Some of the matters thus skipped were:

• "Less formal communications between intelligence agencies and other parts of the Executive Branch" (i.e., back-door White House pressure on the CIA to deliver intelligence supporting an invasion)
• Any White House records
• Interviews with President Bush, Vice President Cheney or other White House officials
• The White House Iraq Group, set up in August 2002 to propagandize the American public on the "need" for an invasion

Sounds pretty important, no? Will the Senate support a Phase III report, finally looking into what Phase II avoided? Or are we stuck with an incomplete investigation?