Bush To Form Iraq Intel Probe

President Bush has decided to sign an executive order creating an investigation of intelligence failures in Iraq, a senior White House official says.

The probe comes after two congressional investigations and a CIA internal probe concluded there was no White House pressure to produce pro-war intelligence.

White House sources tell CBS News Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts the commission will have full access to materials they need. The commission will be set up quickly, but is not expected to complete work until next year - after the election.

The former chief U.S. weapons inspector, David Kay, welcomed the decision on Sunday, because flawed intelligence undermines the Bush administration's policy of striking first if U.S. interests are threatened.

"If you cannot rely on good, accurate intelligence that is credible to the American people and to others abroad, you certainly cannot have a policy of pre-emption," Kay said in a broadcast interview.

While the United States always has reserved the right of a first strike, President Bush has elevated the strategy of pre-emption to a central part of his foreign policy doctrine.

"Pristine intelligence, good accurate intelligence is a fundamental bedstone of any sort of policy of pre-emption to be even thought about," Kay said.

Kay said that until it is clear how prewar intelligence about Iraq's cache of banned weapons ended up being off-the-mark, the public will be dubious of claims by the government that Iran, North Korea or Syria, for instance, pose grave dangers.

"I think most of us would have greater doubts," Kay said. "I would hope, even the president would have greater doubts until we understand the fundamental causes" of the flawed intelligence.

Bush had resisted the idea of a new commission, and has not yet announced his support publicly. But his administration is under mounting election-year pressure to agree to an independent inquiry about Iraq's alleged arsenal of banned destruction.

Despite months of searching, U.S. inspectors have found no forbidden weapons in Iraq. Bush had cited the suspected weapons as a rationale for the war.

Kay has said the administration's intelligence on Iraq was "almost all wrong" and that the information on which Bush's war decision was based was erroneous.

Lawmakers from both parties told the Sunday morning political talk shows that America's credibility is being undermined by uncertainty over flawed intelligence that led the United States into war in Iraq.

"We need to open this up in a very nonpartisan, outside commission, to see where we are," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The issue is not just shortcomings of U.S. intelligence, he said, but "the credibility of who we are around the world and the trust of our government and our leaders."

Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, another top Republican on the committee, said that he may be willing to go along with an independent commission because "I think we have major problems with our intelligence community. I think we need to take a look at a complete overhaul."

And Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also said an independent panel is needed posthaste.

"It cannot, as some of our colleagues indicated, start a year from now or at the end of the year," Rockefeller said. "It's got to start very soon. You don't take national security and say, `Oh, let's just put it on hold for a year, until an election is over.' ... We're talking about national security."

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., agreed. "America's credibility's at stake," Biden said. "This isn't about politics anymore."