WAXMAN Accuses Rice Of Blocking State Department Investigations

[kpete]

Things are getting nasty all around, it seems. Today Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) said that a State Department official had tried to block investigators' access to a State Department analyst who'd raised alarms about the bogus Niger evidence before the State of the Union in 2003.

Waxman to Rice: Step Back
By Paul Kiel - May 4, 2007, 12:55 PM
Here's the latest volley in the ongoing battle between Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Waxman, the chairman of the House committee on oversight, wrote to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice today to complain that State Department officials had attempted to prevent a nuclear weapons anaylst at the department from speaking with his staff. This comes after Waxman's committee issued a subpoena last week for Rice's testimony on how she dealt with claims before the war that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. Rice has said that she won't comply with the subpoena.

Waxman said that when his staff sought to meet with Simon Dodge, a nuclear weapons analyst at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, a State Department official called and objected. According to Waxman, the official "informed Committee staff that you (Rice)were prohibiting Mr. Dodge from meeting with Committee investigators. This official claimed that allowing Mr. Dodge to speak with Committee staff would be 'inappropriate' because the Committee voted to issue a subpoena to compel your attendance at a hearing on your knowledge of the fabricated evidence."

more at:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003156.php

[spanone]

1. Kick ass Henry, Recommended