Friday, September 8, 2006

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Kit Bond today called Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats’ attempt to spin the Phase II report released today “deceptive” calling it a “desperate attempt to find something to pin on the Bush Administration for political leverage.”

“We had two years of discussion and debate and thorough review and we concluded, as did the Silverman-Robb Commission, that there was no pressure and no misuse of intelligence,” said Bond. “But Democrats continue to make partisan attacks even though the facts do not support those conclusions.”

“The Committee has wasted an inordinate amount of time looking in the rearview mirror as some of its members desperately attempt to find something to pin on the Bush Administration for political leverage. The Democrats “Additional View” section is deceptive in its own right and not supported by the facts found in the Committee’s reports. In fact, the two reports do not even focus on the topic that the Democrats write about in their Additional View.”

“It is clear that our intelligence community is responsible for massive failures prior to the Iraq war, as the Committee’s first report in 2004 detailed. Yet to make a giant leap in logic to claim that the Bush Administration intentionally misled the nation or manipulated intelligence, is simply not warranted by the facts that the Committee found.”

“The Committee’s initial inquiry in pre-war intelligence was appropriate and necessary to investigate the major intelligence failures. But thereafter, instead of setting about to fix those problems, we’ve wasted our time on a witch hunt.”

Bond added that the Committee needs to turn its attention to the Intelligence Community and that the Community has a long way to go in implementing recent reforms and recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission, Hart-Rudman Commission, Robb-Silberman Commission, and others.

“This is where we need to focus our efforts,” said Bond.