SENATE
INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE SHUTS DOWN
Does the nation now lack sufficient
intelligence oversight?
10 November 2003
The
US Senate committee charged with overseeing the
methods of gathering and the use of intelligence
has been shut down. The interruption in business
comes amid a confusing and unusual series of events
within the committee itself.
The
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has been
charged with investigating the gathering, distribution
and use of intelligence leading up to the attacks
of September 11, 2001. In the course of this investigation,
ties into the processing of intelligence leading
up to the Iraq war began to produce calls for broadening
the investigation into possible misuse or misrepresentation
of intelligence by high-ranking officials.
The
White House argued its position that the committee
actually had no jurisdiciton over the White House.
Republicans responded with sympathy, instead saying
they were interested in learning all there was to
know about the intelligence process, in order to
ensure that national security was not jeopardized
by flaws in the process. Democrats, however, brought
forth the possibility of investigating allegations
that the administration deliberately presented false
reports to the committee, in order to push Congress
to approve the war resolution.
Calls
for an independent investigation into the leaking
of the identity of a CIA agent led to discussion
of using the committee as a platform for gathering
the evidence necessary to launch such an investigation.
As the debate reached its peak intensity, a memo
was leaked to Fox news, reportedly by staffers for
a Republican on the committee. The memo spoke of
directing the probe toward administration officials,
who had been stonewalling investigators.
The
White House had issued a memo to Committee chairmen
in Congress, stating that the White House would
only take requests for information from Committee
chairmen from then on. All such chairmen are Republicans
at present, and the memo was taken by Democrats
as an explicit refusal to cooperate with Congressional
inquiries.
It
is this climate to which the Democrats claim the
leaked memo was a response. Sen. Frist said he did
not believe the committee could conduct effective
oversight of intelligence in such a partisan climate.
Claiming
that the quality of his investigation would be jeopardized
if the White House were alleged to have manipulated
intelligence, Roberts agreed with Frist and shut
down the committee. Democrats contend that the quality
of the investigation was already compromised by
a Republican refusal to investigate the White House
and its use of intelligence. According to the Wichita
Eagle:
"Numerous
questions have been raised" about how Bush
may have manipulated intelligence data to lead
the nation to war, said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.
But Roberts has "rejected" any questioning
leading in that direction, he said.
Reid
also said the memo was likely stolen from committee
Democrats and that because the information --
property of the Intelligence Committee -- mysteriously
ended up in Republican hands, that matter is as
serious as Republican demands to find out who
wrote the memo.
There is clear political pressure from the White
House to stall or divert investigations in the Intelligence
Committee, and yet in order to prevent politics
from entering the investigation, Senators Frist
and Roberts have chosen to abandon the investigation
altogether. The Wall Street Journal editorial page
called for the Committee to be "shut down,
cleaned out and reconstituted later, preferably
after the next election."
What
remains unclear is who will conduct Congressional
oversight of Executive use of intelligence in the
interim, or indeed whether any such oversight will
be permitted under this new policy.
RELATED
MATERIALS:
on the climate of intelligence scrutiny...
