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US Senate holds closed session on intelligence

In a day of political drama on Tuesday, Democrats forced the Republican-controlled Senate into an unusual closed session, questioning the intelligence that US President George W. Bush used in the run-up to the war in Iraq and accusing Republicans of ignoring the issue.

"They have repeatedly chosen to protect the Republican administration rather than get to the bottom of what happened and why," Democratic leader Harry Reid said.

The afternoon halt in Senate business let Democrats steer the spotlight to the war in Iraq, an issue on which the president is doing badly in public-opinion polls.

Democrats sought assurances that Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts would complete the second phase of an investigation of the administration's prewar intelligence.

A six-member task force, three from each party, was appointed to review the Intelligence Committee's work and report to respective leaders by Nov. 14.

Taken by surprise, Republicans derided the move as a political stunt but agreed two hours later to the bipartisan review of the Intelligence Committee's investigation.

"The United States Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership," said Majority Leader Bill Frist.

He linked the act to Democratic anxiety that Bush nominated to the Supreme Court an apparently qualified judge, Samuel Alito, who will be difficult to contest.

Roberts' committee produced a 511-page report last year on flaws in an Iraq intelligence estimate assembled by the US' top analysts in October 2002, and he promised a second phase would look at issues that couldn't be finished in the first year of work.

The committee worked on the second phase of the review, Roberts said, but it has not finished. He blamed Democrats for the delays and said his staff had informed Democratic counterparts on Monday that the committee hoped to complete the second phase next week.

"Now we have this ... stunt 24 hours after their staff was informed that we were moving to closure next week," a clearly angry Roberts told reporters. "If that's not politics, I'm not standing here."

In midafternoon Tuesday, Reid demanded the Senate go into closed session. The public was ordered out of the chamber, the lights were dimmed, and the doors were closed. No vote is required in such circumstances.

Reid's move refocused attention on the continuing controversy over prewar intelligence. Despite administration claims, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and some Democrats have accused the White House of twisting intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by Iraq.

Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was indicted last Friday in an investigation that touched on the war, into his leak of the identity of a CIA official married to a critic of the administration's Iraq policy.

"The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about, how this administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions," Reid said before invoking Senate rules for a closed session.

Libby resigned from his White House post after being indicted.

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