Intelligence Failures in Iraq

President George W. Bush's foreign policy suffered a serious blow recently, when intelligence used to justify the preemptive war on Iraq was deemed questionable enough to appoint a committee to review mistakes. Unfortunately, the committee is pointless, has no power and is not truly independent. In addition, President George W. Bush has changed his rationale for war, one year and thousands of deaths after the invasion.

On NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, Bush backed away from earlier assertions that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and instead said Hussein could have created them - and said this was a justification for war.

Hussein's alleged intent and potential to develop weapons of mass destruction is not an adequate justification for war. If Iraq were an imminent threat to our nation, perhaps the war would have been justified - but now Bush is admitting no such imminent threat existed, saying instead only that it could have existed.

Changing the rationale for war, after so many lives and dollars have been spent, is a slap in the face to those who trusted Bush to carry out a responsible foreign policy. The Bush administration needs to be held accountable for their flawed justifications for war - something a new investigative committee , set up directly by Bush himself, will certainly fail to do.

The commission will be responsible for explaining why no weapons were found. It will not address why Bush embraced pre-emption, or why those who said there were no weapons, such as U.N. inspector Hans Blix, were summarily ignored by the U.S. government.

The emphasis on the committee should show that the reasons for the war were weapons and a perceived threat, not the revisionist notion of nation building against a nasty dictator. As more lives are lost and more dollars are spent, Americans deserve a full explanation of why things are this way. The nation must know if the facts led the policy or the other way around.

Bush appointed all the members of the panel responsible for uncovering the truth, albeit under the notion of "bipartisan." The co-chairmen, former U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Laurence Silberman and former Sen. and former Gov. Charles Robb of Virginia are both close friends of Bush's, with deep ties to the party.

Silberman played a major role in the Iran Contra scandal, and then used his position to overturn the convictions of other members, including Oliver North. He also abetted the witch-hunt against former President Bill Clinton, protecting Ken Starr against inquiries into how his office was illegally leaking documents.

The other chairman, Charles Robb, was the subject of the 1996 movie, "The Perfect Candidate," chronicling the odd moments in his career where he cheated on his wife with Miss Virginia and other young women at various Virginia Beach parties. When he illegally obtained phone conversations of his opponent in a race, he lied about it but was somehow shielded from a federal investigation - some believed it was a return favor for voting to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

Both chairs have dubious histories as independent seekers of truth and the facts. The rest of the group is composed of people who all supported the war, including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. If that was not enough of a conflict, the committee also has no subpoena power, and the mission statement is worded in an awkward fashion to reinforce the administration's views.

If the panel is interested in finding the true failures of intelligence, there are many places to look. There is the fighting between Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA that led Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to start a separate intelligence operation run out of the Pentagon called the Office of Special Plans with the sole purpose of second-guessing the CIA. There is also the question of how reliable Iraqi sources were when they delivered information of massive weapons programs.

The damage from the commission's lack of independence or subpoena power merely exacerbates the third problem of delayed findings. Results are not due for over a year, removing any election year accountability for Bush. If he has nothing to hide and feels like he acted in his bounds with the available intelligence, there should be no problem with turning over all the relevant information in a timely matter that will quickly quell all queries.

The fundamental dishonesty involved with the creation of the committee will only make the trust problems worse. If the truth ever comes out, it will not come from this group, and no matter what the conclusion, it will not stop the disastrous policy of pre-emption. With no answers in sight, the fix is clearly in.