The use of intelligence

If done right -- with independent members and a broad mandate -- the commission could shed light on errors of omission and commission that have caused US intelligence to be dramatically wrong not only about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction but also about the nuclear programs of Pakistan, India, Iran, Libya, and North Korea.

But if Bush believes he can hide from questions about his use and misuse of intelligence by creating a commission that reports its findings after Nov. 2, he is deluding himself. The public and his political opponents already know that the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons said to be in Saddam's possession have not been found.

They also know a great deal about the ways in which administration policy makers tilted the intelligence process to produce preordained conclusions. In an unprecedented gesture that was regarded at the CIA as an attempt to influence or intimidate agency analysts, Vice President Dick Cheney and his top assistants went to CIA headquarters in the run-up to the war to question agency analysts.

Cheney has defended this innovation as a proper extension of the policy makers' need to pose hard questions to intelligence providers. But the intimidating context for those hard questions was a reality known to policy maker and intelligence officer alike: Cheney's public stance in favor of a war to disarm Saddam and remove him from power.

Administration hawks also set up what they called the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon, not merely to question CIA analyses, but to gather, evaluate, and pass on to the White House intelligence information they culled from their own sources, most of which has since been discredited. In other words, Bush's policy makers were cherry-picking intelligence, with the consumers of intelligence creating and shaping the intelligence product.

Democratic leaders in Congress had it just right when they asked in a letter sent to Bush Monday that the commission's mandate include "the collection, analysis, dissemination, and use by policy makers of intelligence on Iraq." And they are also right to ask that commission members be appointed "on a bipartisan basis by the congressional leadership."

The ultimate place for questions about Bush's judgment or his candor should be the public forum of a presidential campaign. Iraqis have been set free from Saddam's enormous concentration camp, but Americans are entitled to know if they can trust a president running for reelection.