Senators clash over inquiry on Iraq
Democrats force a rare closed session
WASHINGTON -- In a power play that stunned and angered Republicans, Senate Democrats yesterday forced the chamber into a rare closed session to demand further investigation into the intelligence that led the nation into the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq.
US may increase forces in Iraq before parliament elections. A2
After the two-hour session, lawmakers emerged to announce that the Intelligence Committee would resume work on its investigation of the prewar intelligence next week. Republicans insisted the review was already scheduled to begin next week, but Democrats countered that the GOP had been dragging its feet on the inquiry since before the 2004 presidential election, as US casualties mounted and more questions surfaced about the war.
''The troops have a right to expect answers and accountability worthy of [their] sacrifice," Senate minority leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, told his colleagues on the floor before calling for the closed-door session. ''I demand on behalf of the American people that we understand why these investigations aren't being conducted."
The maneuver clearly surprised the Republicans, who derided it as a ''political stunt" and accused Democrats of undermining the civility of an institution that has already become extremely rancorous.
''Never have I been slapped in the face with such an affront to the leadership of this grand institution," Senate majority leader Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, told reporters after Reid's parliamentary move. ''It means from now on, for the next year and a half, I can't trust Senator Reid."
The Senate has held 53 closed sessions since 1929, usually about national security matters. When Rule 21 is invoked and seconded, doors to the chamber are shut without debate, the lawmakers present must turn in their cellphones and pagers, and the substance of the meeting must not be publicly discussed.
The private session could not force the Republicans to take any action, but the Democrats outmaneuvered and frustrated the majority party, which has largely had its way since the GOP took control of the chamber in 2002.
The episode highlighted the turmoil on Capitol Hill. Frustrated Democrats have seethed about what they call a lack of accountability in a government controlled by one party, and Frist is struggling to keep order in the chamber and within his own ranks.
Republicans were divided over the failed Supreme Court nomination of Harriet E. Miers, who withdrew her candidacy under fire last week. The indictment and resignation last week of White House adviser I. Lewis ''Scooter" Libby on perjury charges has further rattled Republicans and fueled the rhetoric of Democrats, some of whom have accused the Bush administration of going to war on false pretenses.
The one political boost the Republicans received this week -- the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr., a highly regarded appellate judge -- was eclipsed yesterday by the Democrats' maneuver.
Frist seemed shaken by the Democrats' tactic. He accused Reid of deliberately violating Senate protocol with the surprise maneuver. ''There was no discussion with Senator Reid before he [offered] the resolution" to go to closed session, Frist said. ''Zero."
Reid curtly dismissed Frist's concerns. ''Consult with the leader so he can stop me from moving on this? What do you mean, consult him?" Reid snapped, answering a reporter's question. The failure to move ahead with the Iraq investigation, he said, is ''a slap in the face to the American people."
Immediately after the closed session, lawmakers in both parties announced that the Senate Intelligence Committee would resume its work on the Iraq war inquiry next week. Further, a six-senator commission was named to examine the disputed status of the investigation itself, with a two-week deadline to report its findings.
Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas and Intelligence Committee chairman, said although the panel has not met about Iraq since May, its staff has been working on the issue and had already informed Democrats that full meetings would resume next week.
But Democrats have contended that, after promising a full and timely investigation in 2004, the GOP majority had virtually halted the investigation. Democrats wanted the inquiry to be completed before the presidential elections that year, but Republicans decided to delay it to avoid affecting the election.
Since then, Democrats contend, the intelligence panel has deliberately ignored the matter. Calling the executive session, they said, was the only way to force the Republicans' hand.
''My colleagues and I have tried for two years to do our oversight work, and for two years we have been undermined, avoided, put off, and vilified by the other side. Any line of questioning that has brought us too close to the White House has been thwarted," said Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. ''At some point the majority needs to understand that we are willing to bring the Senate to a halt until they will join us in conducting the kind of investigation this situation demands."
Roberts called the examination of the delay ''irrelevant," but suggested it was necessary to placate Democratic leaders. ''It's a process to report back to leadership so Harry [Reid] doesn't have to get so worked up and blame everything from aardvarks to zebras on the Republicans," he said.
In June, the Senate Intelligence Committee, responding to reports that the prewar intelligence was faulty, completed a first phase of the inquiry, which focused on the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction the White House insisted that Iraq possessed. In a second phase, the committee was to examine how the Bush administration used the intelligence; Democrats had hoped that the panel would also investigate whether the intelligence was manipulated to buttress the argument for war.
Roberts said yesterday that the first phase has already concluded that the intelligence was not the result of undue pressure or manipulation of officials who collected it. He said that each of the hundreds of witnesses who appeared before the committee was asked specifically whether he or she was pressured and that all answered that they had not been pressured.
But Democrats say the alleged manipulation of intelligence has never been fully explored and that Libby's indictment heightens the need for a closer look at the build-up to the war.
''The Senate Republican majority has obediently stifled any serious investigation about how this happened. We need an investigation, not a cover-up, and it's long past time to conduct it fully, fairly, and honestly," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. 