White House opposes move to declassify report on Iraq's WMDs

[maddezmom]

Source: The Examiner

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The White House is resisting a move by both Republicans and Democrats to fully declassify a Senate report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Republicans say the public disclosure would help show that the CIA made honest mistakes in its 2002 assessment that Iraq owned stockpiles of WMDs, when in fact it no longer did.

But the White House believes the declassification would trigger another round of negative news media coverage and Democratic-led congressional hearings, said a Senate Republican, who asked to remain anonymous because of ongoing private discussions.

The dispute revolves around an obscure federal panel, the nine-member Public Interest Declassification Board.

Last November, incoming Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and the outgoing chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., signed a letter to the board asking for a review of two committee reports.


Read more: http://www.examiner.com/a-797444~White_House_opposes_move_to_declassify_report_on_Iraq_s_WMDs.html?cid=rss-Washington_DC

[Waya]

1. Don't want their lies exposed...............

......what a shock!

[babylonsister]

2. LaLaLaLa - what are they hiding?? nt

[underpants]

15. if you got nothing to hide.... .... n/t

[hobbit709]

3. The WH is afraid that all the lies will be exposed

That's the only reason they don't want it declassified. If you ain't got nothing to hide, why are they hiding.

[jamesinca]

4. The need to blame the CIA and avoiding bad press

Can't have it both ways. There is no bad press for this administration if the CIA screwed up. Likewise if the administration lied, how can the CIA be held accountable. Can't have it both ways. I think the WH knows it lied and it's retarded knuckle dragging minions still think the CIA did it. That explains the 26-29% support Bush still has.

[Solly Mack]

5. so the WH doesn't want to release something Republicans claim will

boost Bush's claim of "bad intel" and "honest mistakes"

LMAO...yeah...OK.




"The White House is resisting a move by both Republicans and Democrats to fully declassify a Senate report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Republicans say the public disclosure would help show that the CIA made honest mistakes in its 2002 assessment that Iraq owned stockpiles of WMDs, when in fact it no longer did."

[0007]

20. A ballad......according to junior!

cheney's dick is killing me, I’m exhausted. I’m coming down with something. I have a dumb & dumpy wife. I've had a cruddy six and a half years

But I’m laughing my ass off now…

[Solly Mack]

21. Oh golly!! still LMAO

[ComerPerro]

27. Its a setup. Congressional Repigs can say that the report proves it was bad intel and honest mistake

while the White House gets to say that this is what the reports show, but they can't release them becasue mean-spirited anti-American types such as Democrats and the media will use it to attack Bush and hurt America, because they will spin it.

So this is win-win, especially for Congressional Repigs.

They get to look like they are standing up to the president, while supporting him at the same time. They literally have their cake and eat it too.

[Solly Mack]

28. I know it's a bullshit ploy

thats why I'm laughing

[Doctor_J]

6. There's the whole story of this entire admin:

White House believes the declassification would trigger another round of negative news media coverage

Well, that's certainly reason enough to hide government business from the public. :eyes:

Lying, filthy, scum.

[Turbineguy]

7. An honest mistake?

One person makes an honest mistake. An agency of thousands does not have that excuse.

[rodeodance]

8. MY GAWD---blame the Cis when it is WHAT Bushco WH DID with the information!

[rodeodance]

9. this is the infamous 'PHASE II"

[rodeodance]

12. my mistake, ----don't think it is the phase ii.

[lovuian]

10. There were no WMD and it was a propoganda machine

orchestrated by Mary maitlin and others to promote the LIE

[gratuitous]

11. It's a Senate report, no?

Then why is the Executive getting a say on what the Legislative does? For some reason, watching the Bush administration, each co-equal branch of government can do whatever it darn well pleases, and the other two branches can just suck it. So why does it matter if the Legislative branch is doing something the Executive branch doesn't like? Suck it, Bushie.

[rodeodance]

13. its a 2000 law-----yet WH is not filling postions (tactic to delay any reports): READ

Under the 2000 law establishing the board, it cannot initiate a review. The president must authorize one. Two pending Senate bills would give the panel the power to recommend declassification on its own, but the White House opposes the legislation on grounds the executive branch should solely control such decisions.

The board is encountering other problems. Congress created it to tackle what some lawmakers consider an over-classification of executive branch documents. But to date, the panel has not made one recommendation on declassification, said a Jan. 19 letter from its chairman, Britt Snider, a former CIA inspector general.

The White House also has failed to fill two vacancies, and the board must compete with The National Archives for funding.

“This puts us at a significant disadvantage as we seek to discharge our responsibilities,” Snider said.

What’s more, the board goes out of existence next year unless Congress reauthorizes it. A board set up to combat excessive secrecy might go extinct without ever declassifying a single executive branch document.

[e-mail]

[rodeodance]

14. brief explanation of jest of Reports here:

One report compared the CIA’s pre-war estimate of Iraq’s WMDs with what was actually uncovered by inspectors in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. The other focused on how the intelligence community used intelligence provided by the Iraqi National Congress, a dissident group in opposition to Saddam Hussein.

Both reports contained blacked-out passages on information the Bush administration declined to declassify.

In a move that surprised some board members, Stephen Hadley, President Bush’s national security adviser, personally got involved negotiating the terms of the review. He told the board in a private meeting that he wanted the National Security Council staff to write the board’s bylaws, which dictate how they declassify a document.

Hadley’s spokesman did not return a phone and an e-mail message.

[ellenfl]

16. i think your mis-spelling of 'gist' is very appropriate here. eom

[juajen]

17. I believe the word you're looking for is "gist"

Love and kisses,

The Spelling Police

[Major Hogwash]

18. I wonder why they don't want this to see the light of day.

Roberts stonewalled releasing that report as long as he could.

[SpiralHawk]

19. republicons made an "honest mistake"? Bwaaaa ha ha ha ha

Tell me another one Bwaaaaa ha ha ha ha ha

[The Backlash Cometh]

22. 43% of Americans think that Saddam had something to do with 9/11.

You need not wonder any longer why almost half of this country is clueless on matters that have to do with culpability. The answer is because this Administration won't release information that will put everybody on the same page.

[progressoid]

23. "declassification would trigger another round of negative news" Riiiiiight

Sure, sure, sure... They don't want to release it to prevent negative news. That makes complete sense....after I beat my skull with this ball-peen hammer.

There, that's better. Now it makes sense.

For a minute I thought they were concerned with the public finding out how they massaged the intel to fit their agenda.

[alllyingwhores]

24. What ever happened to phase 2 of the Iraq intelligence failure investigation?

The one where Rockefeller and others were going to investigate how pissy pants and the rest of the whores distorted the intelligence and simply fabricated lies about WMDs in Iraq leading up to the invasion.

Didn't the Democrats walk out in protest a year or so ago because phase 2 was constantly being blocked? Now that we have a majority are they actually doing phase 2?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

25. call your Congressman or look online

[Rosa Luxemburg]

26. Could Patrick Fitzgerald see the documents?

[19jet54]

29. They just want to fight...

... I think they have taken the position of "resistance" to the democrats in the recent election, no matter what it is? The ability to stop the opposition's progress in any way is viewed as political power; this administration is nothing if not power hungry. But I also agree they are hiding stuff too!

[KansDem]

30. Don't you have to have WMDs before you can have a report on them?

Maybe I'm not as clever or wise as those in DC or the media, but I would think you would have to actually have something before a report can be written about that something...

Unless it's a report about nothing, then I think we're on the right track.

[MLFerrell]

31. In other news, the Sun rises in the East this morning...

Film at 11.