Bush: I Want Iraq WMD 'Facts'
President Bush will sign an executive order to open an investigation into U.S. intelligence failures in Iraq, but it is unclear just what the probe will cover and how long it will take.
Mr. Bush said Monday he will consult with former chief weapons inspector David Kay before ordering the investigation.
Trying to quiet mounting election-year criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike, Mr. Bush said he will name an independent, bipartisan inquiry into faulty intelligence in Iraq and gaps in other areas, such as secretive regimes like Iran and North Korea and stateless groups such as terrorists.
Mr. Bush defended his decision to go to war on intelligence that Kay now says was erroneous. Kay has concluded that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.
"I want all the facts. We do know that Saddam Hussein had the intent and capabilities to cause great harm. We know he was a danger … He slaughtered thousands of people," Mr. Bush said.
Mr. Bush said the commission would "analyze where we stand, what we can do better as we fight this war against terror." He said he would sit down with Kay soon to get a briefing.
Kay threw the administration's rationale for war in Iraq in doubt with his determination that Saddam did not have the weapons of mass destruction that the United States had insisted he possessed.
Kay told Congress last week that "it turns out we were all wrong, probably" about the Iraqi threat.
The president did not set a timetable for the investigation to report its findings, and he sidestepped a question about whether the country was owed an explanation before the November elections.
The timetable is a sensitive issue since its findings could become an issue in the presidential campaign.
It is also unclear if the probe will examine merely the intelligence, or also look at how it was used by the president and aides.
The president's supporters say any problems with the case for war are due to bad intelligence, while Democrats contend that the Bush administration oversold the intelligence it had.
Mr. Bush's decision comes amid assertions that America's credibility is being undermined by uncertainty over the intelligence used as a basis for invading Iraq.
A year ago his week, Secretary of State Colin Powell laid out the Administration's case for war. Powell said that Iraq had "biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more," and had shipped "chemical weapons from production facilities out to the field." He also outlined Saddam Hussein's alleged "efforts to reconstitute his nuclear program."
Despite months of searching, U.S. inspectors have found no banned weapons in Iraq. And while there is evidence Iraq maintained some capacity to make small amounts of biological and chemical weapons, no large-scale production programs have been uncovered.
Mr. Bush initially reacted coolly to setting up an independent investigation, then decided during the weekend to go forward. By setting up the investigation himself, Mr. Bush will have greater control over its membership and mandate.
White House sources say the commission will be announced this week and get up and running quickly, reports CBS News White House Correspondent Bill Plante.
The senior White House official said it would be patterned after the Warren Commission, which conducted a 10-month investigation that concluded in 1964 that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing President Kennedy.
In appointing the nine members, Mr. Bush will draw heavily from experts familiar with problems in intelligence, the White House official said, describing them as "distinguished citizens who have served their country in the past."
Brent Scowcroft, who served as the national security adviser to the first President Bush, is a possible member or chairman.
Lawmakers from both parties say the intelligence flap has diluted America's credibility.
"The issue is not just shortcomings of U.S. intelligence," Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday on CNN, but "the credibility of who we are around the world and the trust of our government and our leaders."
Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democrat representing Delaware, agreed, telling CNN: "America's credibility's at stake. This isn't about politics anymore."
Some critics question why it has taken the Bush administration so long to take a second look at the Iraq intelligence. The weapons hunt to date has cost about $900 million, and Britain's Observer newspaper, quoting intelligence sources, policy makers and weapons inspectors, reports U.S. officials concluded as early as last May that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
David Albright, a former weapons inspector, told The Associated Press he feared the administration might try to use the commission as a way to delay judgments about the intelligence community and the administration's use of the information it receives.
"The bottom line for them (the Bush administration) is to delay the day of reckoning about their use of the weapons of mass destruction information," Albright said.
"David Kay can blame the CIA and say, 'Oh, I made all these comments based on what I heard from the intelligence community.' President Bush can't do that. He's the boss."
In related developments, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was expected to announce a decision Monday or Tuesday on whether to launch his own inquiry into prewar intelligence. Opposition leaders have called for an independent inquiry.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, seeking to deflect criticism after the White House announced the probe, said his country's intelligence on Iraq came largely from the United States and Britain.
Elsewhere on Monday, the head of U.N. weapons inspectors was scheduled to arrive in Moscow for talks with Russian diplomats on the possibility of returning his team to Iraq. U.N. inspectors were pulled out of Iraq in March, just before the U.S.-led war that ousted Saddam Hussein's regime. After the war, the United States deployed its own search teams and refused to allow U.N. inspectors to return.