11.14.2005
Roberts: Iraq Will Affect Future War Votes (WashingtonPost.com)
Experience With Faulty Data Has Made Senators More Wary, Panel Chairman Says
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 14, 2005; Page A04
The Republican chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said yesterday that one lesson of the faulty prewar intelligence on Iraq is that senators would take a hard look at intelligence before voting to go to war.
"I think a lot of us would really stop and think a moment before we would ever vote for war or to go and take military action," Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) said on "Fox News Sunday."
"We don't accept this intelligence at face value anymore," he added. "We get into preemptive oversight and do digging in regards to our hard targets."
He said that agreement has been reached on the Phase 2 review that the intelligence panel is doing to look into whether the Bush administration exaggerated or misused prewar intelligence. The review may not be finished this year, he said.
The intelligence panel vice chairman, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), also appearing on Fox, called the review "absolutely useful" because "if it is the fact that they [the Bush administration] created intelligence or shaped intelligence in order to bring American opinion along to support them in going to war, that's a really bad thing -- it should not ever be repeated."
(More ... Roberts: Iraq Will Affect Future War Votes) ¶ 18:40
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 14, 2005; Page A04
The Republican chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said yesterday that one lesson of the faulty prewar intelligence on Iraq is that senators would take a hard look at intelligence before voting to go to war.
"I think a lot of us would really stop and think a moment before we would ever vote for war or to go and take military action," Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) said on "Fox News Sunday."
"We don't accept this intelligence at face value anymore," he added. "We get into preemptive oversight and do digging in regards to our hard targets."
He said that agreement has been reached on the Phase 2 review that the intelligence panel is doing to look into whether the Bush administration exaggerated or misused prewar intelligence. The review may not be finished this year, he said.
The intelligence panel vice chairman, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), also appearing on Fox, called the review "absolutely useful" because "if it is the fact that they [the Bush administration] created intelligence or shaped intelligence in order to bring American opinion along to support them in going to war, that's a really bad thing -- it should not ever be repeated."
(More ... Roberts: Iraq Will Affect Future War Votes) ¶ 18:40
