Remember When Sen. Reid Suddenly Closed The Senate Last Year?

Last year, Senator Harry Reid ordered the senate [closed to discuss](http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/01/senate.iraq/) classified matters.

When closed, he ranted and raved and complained that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) hadn’t released its vaunted “Phase II” report concerning pre-war intelligence on Iraq compared to pre-war statements about that intelligence. The first part of the Phase II report was released, but it was a political joke. The second part was always supposed to be a comparison between statements people made before the invasion and compare those statements with the actual intelligence. Now, FOX News did a GREAT job covering this political stunt. There were the obligatory interviews with Sen. Reid, Sen. Rockefeller, and other Democrats, but the one that I liked the most was with Sen. Pat Roberts who explained that the Phase II report in question was near complete in the Spring 06, presented to the committee for approval, and Democrats went nuts when they saw that some of their own pre-war statements had been included ([they thought](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,174187,00.html) it was just going to be Bush Admin statements thus making great anti-Admin political fodder rather than reiterating that even Democrats on the secret committee believed the pre-war intel).

The Democrats (per Pat Roberts) balked, refused to approve the report, and wanted it re-done. When Sen. Reid ordered the Senate closed last year, he said that it was Republicans stalling. Well, Democrats have had the committee for almost a year now. Where’s the report? Are Democrats going to try and stand by their claim from last year that the Bush Admin is making the committee not release the report even though it’s controlled by Democrats? Are they going to claim that the report is STILL not complete even though they’ve had a year to finish the work that was started almost 5 years ago?

This was a big deal last year, and the innuendo, false accusations, and misleading suggestion that somehow the Bush Administration manipulated or deliberately lied about pre-war intelligence is an important one. Not only does it show that FOX News’ Sean Hannity [was right](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1513709/posts) when he [reported about](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,102206,00.html) the infamous “Rockefeller Memo,” Far more importantly it shows that America’s intelligence systems which had failed so badly before 911, on 911, failed again in Dec 02 to pinpoint Bin Laden before he escaped Tora Bora, and failed again to accurately detail the threat of Saddam’s Iraq (a failure that has led directly to the loss of 4000 lives, hundreds of billions of dollars, and so much war), this repeated, systemic intelligence failure continues to exist because politicians want to pretend that the bigger problem is who’s ass sits behind a desk at 1600 Pa Ave. The “Bush Lied” debate-which is what that SSCI Phase II statement report is all about-is the core of the debate over the entire Iraq War. Repeated investigations into the pre-war intel have shown that the intelligence was weak, bad, etc., and that there was no deliberate fiction, undue pressure, or [misleading](https://floppingaces.net/2007/04/15/saddams-ties-to-al-quedadebunk/)

Recall that even Feith’s office was [cleared of criminal wrong-doing](https://floppingaces.net/2007/04/07/doug-feith-found-innocentpenta/), and even his OSP’s reporting was clarified by direct CIA reporting 48hrs later in their Sept 02 “Iraqi Support for Terrorism” pamphlet which the SSCI was given).

I think it’s time that someone had an interview with the Democrat running the SSCI, and asked him some tough questions. Where’s the report? “Dude, where’s your homework? It’s been almost five years?!”