Contact: Rob Ostrander 202.224.7627 Shana Stribling 202.224.0309
Tuesday, November 15, 2005

WASHINGTON – Senator Kit Bond, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, today released the following statement:

“President Bush and Congress have tough battles ahead of them to provide support for our troops in Iraq and develop an effective intelligence system that will provide better intelligence than we had prior to the Iraq war. Unfortunately, the Democratic leadership seems to be a one-trick donkey, as an editorial recently put it, focusing instead on their continuing effort to prove somehow that the Republican Administration manipulated or abused the intelligence prior to the Iraq war.

“The Senate Intelligence Committee spent an extensive two-year effort compiling a report that received bi-partisan, unanimous support that stated there were no attempts to influence analysts to change intelligence and there was no evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments.

“In addition, the Robb-Silberman Report found that “it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments.” This report along with several other major studies, totally disprove the allegation that the Democrats wanted to use during the 2004 election that somehow the Administration lied to get us into war.

“Now, instead of focusing on doing our work the Democrats are trying, prior to the 2006 election, to slam the Administration and claim that they were the ones who were mislead.

“It appears that statements on both sides of the aisle may have gone too far in asserting the definitive nature of the intelligence. For example, those who said there was ‘unmistakable evidence’ of the nuclear efforts of Saddam Hussein, such as one of our Democrat colleagues stated, may have gone too far. This does not change the fact that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was clearly a dangerous place. We know that the intelligence estimates were flawed. I believe, however, that the world is a better and safer place without Saddam Hussein in power. I think most Americans believe this. I also believe that it is essential to our safety that we destroy the terrorists residing in Iraq. To do so we must stop wringing our hands and playing politics and prosecute this war to a successful conclusion. We owe that to those Americans and Iraqis who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

“Efforts to cast doubts on the war among the public have the effect of playing into the terrorists’ hands. As senior al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri said in a letter to his chief lieutenant in Iraq, Musab al-Zarqawi, “We need to win the hearts and minds of the public.”

“The continuing efforts of the Democrats do nothing but encourage the terrorists and hurt the morale of our troops, as well as threaten to cut back on the vitally important intelligence gathering and analysis the CIA does.”