Posted on 05/26/2004 5:51:31 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (AP) - In its first official meeting Wednesday, the president's commission investigating flawed intelligence on weapons of mass destruction heard from David Kay, the former Iraq weapons inspector whose criticism helped drive the panel's creation.
Kay, along with about a dozen other experts, appeared before the commission in a closed seven-hour session to brief the nine commissioners as they begin sorting out the quality of U.S. intelligence on the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
President Bush formed the commission - called the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction - in February after increasing criticism involving the prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs. Their existence was a key argument for the war that removed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power.
Kay, the former head of the Iraq Survey Group that is searching for the banned weapons, reinvigorated the debate on the war's justification when he resigned in January and questioned whether weapons of mass destruction would ever be found.
Kay did not return calls seeking comment after his commission appearance Wednesday.
The panel also heard Wednesday from current and former Iraq Survey Group officials and members of the National Intelligence Council. Commission spokesman Larry McQuillan declined to provide names of the other individuals.
The meeting focused primarily on Iraq, although the commission will be looking at the threat from other countries and terrorist networks, according to a statement from the commission's chairmen, former Sen. Chuck Robb, D-Va., and Republican Laurence Silberman, a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The panel will convene again Thursday to hear from about a dozen more experts, McQuillan said. The commissioners have until the end of March 2005 to report to Bush.
Unlike the Sept. 11 commission's sometimes heated witness-questioner format, McQuillan said the first meeting was more like a briefing, with commissioners seated around a rectangular table hearing presentations and asking questions of the attendees.
Also unlike the Sept. 11 commission, the meetings are closed to the public because of the classified nature of the materials. McQuillan said detailed minutes are being kept.
The commission, however, does plan to launch by week's end a Web site with the address www.wmd.gov containing the information that can be made public.
In addition to Silberman and Robb, the commission includes: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Lloyd Cutler, former White House counsel to Presidents Carter and Clinton; former federal judge Patricia M. Wald; Yale University president Richard C. Levin; retired Adm. William O. Studeman, former deputy director of the CIA; Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Charles M. Vest; and Henry S. Rowen, a professor emeritus at Stanford University and assistant defense secretary from 1989 to 1991.
All of the members are anti-Bush. They won't be any more impartial than the 911 Commission. This is totally revolting.
eegaads another f'n commission....
I guess the Sarin Gas that exploded in a dirty bomb will not be considered WMD.
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