BUSH CAVES ON INDEPENDENT
PROBE OF WMD INTELLIGENCE

From the Houston Chronicle:

"The commission will look at Iraq, but it will have a broader mandate to look at WMD (weapons of mass destruction) findings all over the world," a White House official said Sunday. "We need a good understanding of the complex global intelligence challenges facing the world today."

By making the focus broader than Iraq, the commission's marching orders could make it difficult to conclude before the November presidential election. The White House said Sunday the goal will be to reach conclusions as swiftly as possible.

The failure to find any evidence that Saddam's regime had chemical, biological or nuclear weapons when the U.S. invaded in March has proven a colossal embarrassment for the Bush administration. Bush and other top officials talked dramatically of the threat those weapons posed as it was made the principle justification for pre-emptive war.

The president has been cool to the idea of a study of U.S. intelligence, even after Kay told a Senate panel last week that pre-war estimates of Iraqi weapons were badly flawed.

The White House said repeatedly last week that the Iraq Survey Group, which had been headed by Kay, needed to complete its work first. But a growing chorus of Republican and Democratic lawmakers called for an outside commission.

Click here.

Here's what I expect: lots of stonewalling. Such has been the typical White House tactic in the face of investigations and official requests for information thus far. The foot dragging on providing the minutes of the energy meetings headed by Cheney as well as the slowness to get serious about the Valerie Plame leak come to mind here. The docile news media seem content to let Bush get away with it.

It's also quite interesting that making it a wide-ranging investigation of intelligence on additional countries' WMD programs means no report before the election.

However, I must admit that I'm happy that there will be some kind of investigation. It's about time...

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