Still Waiting for
Answers
EDITORIAL, NYTimes on
the Web, April 29, 2007
Surely no one beyond a handful of the
most self-deluded Republicans in Congress was surprised at the disclosure by
George Tenet, the former intelligence director, that there was never a serious
debate in the Bush administration about whether Iraq actually posed a threat to
the United States.
It has long been evident that President Bush decided to invade Iraq first, and
constructed his ramshackle case for the war after the fact. So why, after
all this time, are Americans still in the dark about the details of that
campaign?
For that matter, why don’t Americans know the full truth about Mr. Bush’s
illegal domestic spying program or his decisions on how to handle prisoners of
the war on terror? And now there are new questions begging for answers —
about the purge of United States attorneys and about campaign pep rallies in
executive branch agencies that might well have violated federal law.
For six years, the Republican majority in Congress ignored the administration’s
power grabs, misdeeds and incompetence or, worse, pushed through laws that gave
legislative cover to some of Mr. Bush’s most outrageous abuses of power.
Now that the Democrats control Congress, they have opened the doors of
government in welcome ways. But the list of questions just seems to grow.
We hope Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the Oversight and Government
Reform Committee, enforces the subpoena of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
to discuss prewar claims about Saddam Hussein’s long-gone weapons programs.
Ms. Rice, who was national security adviser before the war, says she has
answered every possible question. Actually, we don’t have room for all our
questions.
Just a few: Did she vet the briefing Mr. Bush got from Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld’s rogue intelligence shop on Iraq’s alleged efforts to acquire
uranium? The Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department thought,
correctly, that the report was false. So why did Ms. Rice permit the
president to repeat it to the world? Or did Mr. Bush also know what he was
claiming was wrong?
The same applies to other claims about Iraq, including a false report about the
purchase of aluminum tubes for bomb building, talk of mushroom clouds and fairy
tales about links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. When it became clear the
intelligence was false, why didn’t Ms. Rice make sure the public found out?
Before the war, Ms. Rice was not in a post requiring Senate confirmation, but
she is now. If she refuses to testify, the House should hold her in
contempt.
It is imperative for Senator John Rockefeller, chairman of the Intelligence
Committee, to finish two remaining studies on prewar intelligence that his
Republican predecessor, Senator Pat Roberts, had no intention of completing.
The first, on the errors made by the intelligence agencies in predicting what
would happen after the invasion of Iraq, is expected to be finished next month.
The final piece of the report will compare what administration officials said
about Iraq with the actual information they had. Both reports are
essential for understanding how this country got into this mess. Mr.
Rockefeller will have to make sure the White House does not drag out the
declassification procedure.
And then there are the questions about the purge of federal prosecutors.
There is mounting evidence that many of the eight fired United States attorneys
were punished for refusing to prosecute Democrats on phony election-fraud
charges. Who ran this purge? And is it true, as it now seems, that
others were rewarded for bringing weak corruption cases timed to close races?
For the last six years, the White House has also conducted seminars in each
election cycle that certainly seem like an effort to use government agencies to
help G.O.P. candidates. Did they violate the law that forbids the use of
federal offices for campaigning?
Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s political “architect,” is at the center of both of these
scandals. Congress needs to issue, and enforce, subpoenas to compel him
and other top White House officials to testify.
Mr. Bush’s supporters are already arguing that Congress’s much-needed
investigations are politically motivated and backward looking. Actually,
the baldly political act was the Republicans’ refusing to do their
constitutional duty of oversight for the last six years. Mr. Waxman said
his panel issued four subpoenas to the Bush administration under Republican
leadership. The same leadership issued more than 1,000 subpoenas to the
Clinton administration.
As for looking back, Mr. Bush has hardly given up the habit of stonewalling
Congress, or shown that he has learned the limits of his power. The war in
Iraq not only continues, but Mr. Bush is escalating it and repeating many of the
same myths about Saddam Hussein. The country does not need any more myths.
It needs answers.
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