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AM - Tuesday, 3 February , 2004 08:00:00
Reporter: John Shovelan
TONY EASTLEY: Under mounting political criticism and growing public disquiet about his reasons for going to war, US President George W. Bush plans to hold an investigation into intelligence failures in Iraq.
President Bush says he will create a bipartisan, independent panel to report back but not until 2005 and after the Presidential elections.
Former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, last week told a congressional committee "we were all wrong" on the issue of whether Iraq possessed stock piles of weapons of mass destruction, the main reason the administration and its allies gave for invading Iraq.
From Washington John Shovelan reports.
JOHN SHOVELAN: The President is responding to pressure from all sides of politics in the US. Even from some of his most loyal congressional allies. And, in agreeing to establish an independent commission into the Iraq intelligence, his administration is implicitly acknowledging that there was something seriously wrong with the allegations and evidence put forward as the grounds for invading Iraq and taking the country to war.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: We should look at what we learned on the ground through the Iraq Survey Group and compare that to what we believed before the war.
JOHN SHOVELAN: But that was as close as the White House Spokesman Scott McClellan came to saying the pre-war intelligence was flawed. In fact, as the White House rushed to finalise who would be on the commission and what powers it would have to subpoena documents and witnesses, the administration was still maintaining the weapons hunt was continuing.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: The work of the Iraq Survey Group is ongoing at this point.
JOHN SHOVELAN: The commission report won't be handed down until early 2005, well after the Presidential election campaign.
Asked about that timing, President Bush didn't directly address the question.
JOURNALIST: Do you think the country is owed an explanation about the Iraq intelligence failures before the election so that voters have this information when they elect a new President?
GEORGE W. BUSH: Well the, first of all, I want to know all the facts. We do know that Saddam Hussein had the intent and the capabilities to cause great harm. We know he was a danger.
What we don't know yet is what we thought and what the Iraqi Survey Group has found and we want to look at that. But we also want to look at our war against proliferation in weapons of mass destruction in a broader context, and so I'm putting together an independent bipartisan commission to analyse where we stand, what we can do better as we fight this, ah, fight this war against terror.
JOHN SHOVELAN: In the end the arguments for an independent inquiry were simply overwhelming and last week's congressional testimony by the former US chief weapons inspector David Kay that we were all wrong about the Iraq weapons threat, pushed it over the line.
GEORGE W. BUSH: Before I move forward with the commission I want to sit down with Mr Kay. I appreciate his service. I've invited him to come down to the White House. I do want to get a briefing from him.
JOHN SHOVELAN: Witnesses are sure to include critics of the administration; some former State Department and CIA officials who claimed the administration pressured analysts and that the Vice President Dick Cheney's frequent visits to the CIA headquarters had intimidated others.
President Bush though, will broaden the terms of reference of the inquiry to beyond Iraq. It will examine other intelligence failures, including America's inability to penetrate terrorist groups.
White House officials say the inquiry will be modelled on the Warren Commission which conducted a ten month investigation into the killing of President John F. Kennedy.
John Shovelan, Washington.
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