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Sen. Roberts Is A Big Fat Liar Email Print

By Georgia10
11/02/2005 04:54:12 PM EST

Yes, yes he is. His statments before the election, leading us on that Phase II was forthcoming:
Bush "made very declarative statements. There's no question about it," said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., the committee's chairman. "He made a case to go to war. We all did. ... We believed it. But the information was wrong. What he (the president) said was what he got from the intelligence community, and what he got was wrong." 7/10/04, Seattle Times

MR. RUSSERT: Was there any political--was there any political pressure from the White House not to do the second part...

SEN. ROBERTS: None. None.

MR. RUSSERT: ...of the investigation until after the election?

SEN. ROBERTS: None. And they didn't even know about the second part of the--and now this thing has morphed into a change as to whether or not the administration has magnified or has changed it or has manipulated it. The whole key was the use of intelligence. And so consequently that is ongoing right now, as I speak, by our staff, as well as a--other priority goal which is to get at the reform measures that we must do on a very careful and deliberate basis. But even as I'm speaking our staff is working on phase two and we will get it done.

MR. RUSSERT: Before the election?

SEN. ROBERTS: I don't know if we can get it done before the election. It is more important to get it right. Understand, too, that it is going to an independent commission after we get our work done. So we haven't heard the end of this by any means. Meet the Press, July 11, 12004

His statements after the election:
Now--with Bush re-elected--Roberts no longer considers Phase II a priority. In mid-March, Roberts declared further investigation pointless. He noted that if his committee asked Bush officials whether they had overstated or mischaracterized prewar intelligence, they'd simply claim their statements had been based on "bum intelligence." Roberts remarked, "To go though that exercise, it seems to me, in a postelection environment--we didn't see how we could do that and achieve any possible progress. I think everybody pretty well gets it." (The Nation, 4/11/05)

It has since become blindingly apparent that Senator Pat Roberts, the committee chairman, intends to retreat on that commitment. In a July 20 letter to US Senator John Kerry, the Kansas Republican made it clear that he doesn't see that as an important priority, and that even if his committee completes phase II, the results may not be made public. Boston Globe, 9/13/2005

It now appears Roberts doesn't intend to keep his word. In remarks last week at the Woodrow Wilson Center, he said the long-awaited phase-two report is "basically on the back burner," indefinitely postponed while the Committee turns its attention to overseeing intelligence reform. Which suits Roberts fine: As he put it, "The bottom line is that (the administration) believed the intelligence, and the intelligence was wrong." The New Republic, 3/28/05


There is no phase two. Last week, a commission appointed by President George W. Bush under public pressure to look into American intelligence about weapons of mass destruction issued yet another report highly critical of the intelligence services. Like the one released by the Senate committee last July, the commission's report left unaddressed the question of whether our leaders told us the truth as they sought our support for their Iraq war plans. That did not stop Roberts, however, from using the occasion as an excuse to close the books on phase two. "I don't think there should be any doubt that we have now heard it all regarding prewar intelligence," Roberts told The Washington Post, presumably with a straight face. "I think that it would be a monumental waste of time to re-plow this ground any further." St. Louis Dispatch, 4/6/05


From MTP, calling him out on a year of delay:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROCKEFELLER: The central issue of how intelligence on Iraq was, in this senator's opinion, exaggerated by the Bush administration officials was relegated to that second phase, as yet unbegun, of the committee investigation.

ROBERTS: As Senator Rockefeller has alluded to, this is in phase two of our efforts. We simply couldn't get that done with the work product that we put out. And he has pointed that out as a top priority. It's one of my top priorities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RUSSERT: Two days later you were on Meet the Press, both of you, and I asked you specifically about phase two of your investigation, looking into the shaping of intelligence, and you said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Even as I'm speaking our staff is working on phase two and we will get it done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RUSSERT: When will we see phase two of your investigation about the shaping or exaggeration of intelligence by policymakers?

ROBERTS: I hope this doesn't take too long. There are three phases to phase two. One is to compare the public statements by the administration and all public officials, including the Congress, with the intelligence matrix that we have. MTP, 4/10/05

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Sen. Roberts Is A Big Fat Liar | 4 comments (4 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Yes, But What About The Dems' Responsibility? (4.00 / 2)
The entire Senate investigation wasn't an investigation at all. It wasn't even a whitewash. It was an active part of the coverup.  This is evident just by looking at the structure of the report.  It assumes a simple linear causality:

Raw Intel->Intel Community->Bush Admin

But we know from reporting going on at the time--back in 2002, from Knight-Ridder and Gannet (USA Today), among others--that the Bush Administration was pressuring the intelligence community, and it's now quite clear that they were pushing raw intel as well. So the causality is clearly not linear, and that was obvious even before we went to war, and "discovered" how bad the intel was.  (As if that wasn't self-evident, when Bush invaded because he was afraid to let the inspectors finish their job.)

All this was obvious to anyone who cared to pick up a paper (or click on a hyperlink) and read it for themselves.  You didn't have to have any sort of clearance at all.  You didn't have to be on an oversight commmittee.  You didn't have to be a member of Congress.  You didn't have to have any connections.  All you had to do was know how to read.

So, yes, of course. Roberts is a lying sumbag son-of-a-bitch.  But what about the Democrats who went along with this, and let themselves be played like straight men in a silent film?  I know we're happy with them now--"Better late than never!" is the battle cry.  But to forget how they dropped the ball in the first place is an open invitation for them to drop it once again.  Perhaps, oh, I don't know, in the last two weeks of the 2006 campaign, maybe???

So, what am I saying, should we yell at them?  No.  We should thank them, to be sure. But at the same time, we should remind them that we know they screwed up in the first place--"Big Time" as our number two war criminal would say.  And so all we are doing now is thanking them for partially cleaning up their mess.  Winning the 2006 elections is another part of cleaning up their mess, as is blocking Scalito's nomination.  

And while we are not attacking them now, we are being vigilant. Because we can't really trust them. Trust takes a very long time to rebuild when it's been this badly damaged.

So, in the meantime, we are vigilant.

We are keeping our powder dry.

"Be realistic. Demand the impossible!" --Wall poster from the 1968 Paris Uprising

by Paul Rosenberg on 11/02/2005 10:26:38 PM EST

I don't disagree with your analysis (none / 0)
but I wonder how, at this point, we give the Dems the message contained in your post without diluting the criticism of republicans and spreading it to the dems.  Kind of a "they're all a bunch of idiots" way of thinking that could prevent 2006 victories.  

As long as no one on the left is willing to commit to a third party, we're stuck with the various tidal patterns of the party we got, right?

by causa on 11/03/2005 02:47:55 AM EST

[ Parent ]
If You Call, Write Letters, Or Post (none / 1)
If you call your Democratic representatives, write them letters, or post diaries, any form of public or directed expression ought to, IMHO, praise the Dems for what they are doing now, but also point out that many in the party's base have been calling for this sort of accounting since well before we went to war.

And we can point to those party officials, such as Kucinich and Graham, who called for this sort of critical stance well before we went to war.

"Be realistic. Demand the impossible!" --Wall poster from the 1968 Paris Uprising

by Paul Rosenberg on 11/03/2005 09:02:44 AM EST

[ Parent ]
well, you know (none / 0)
maybe it's a sort of chicken/egg type discussion, but given that most politicians seem to be such inate cowards, I place equal blame on the lack of a free and independent media for much of the mess we're in these days.

by causa on 11/04/2005 03:10:43 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Sen. Roberts Is A Big Fat Liar | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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