Reid Forces Frist Into Re-Opening Senate Inquiry Into Bush Handling Of Iraq WMD Intelligence

by Steve

Mullah Frist, fighting back tears..before he did the right thing

Harry Reid just caught Bill Frist off guard and took the Senate into a surprise closed session today, ostensibly to demand to know why the GOP leadership has never conducted a promised inquiry into how the Bush Administration used WMD intelligence leading up to the Iraq invasion. According to diarists over at Daily Kos, Frist is fuming at Reid for being outmaneuvered here, especially since the White House playbook today was to change the subject away from Libby and towards bird flu, Alito, and tax reform. The closed session is now over, for today that is.

Frist was left to fume afterwards that it was Reid who was hijacking the Senate and was slapping Frist in the face, as he admitted there was nothing against the rules in what Reid did. Yet here is the sorry record of Frist and Roberts in blocking Democratic efforts at accountability here. Reid is demanding that Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts keep his promise to have a “Phase Two” inquiry into how the Bush Administration handled the available WMD intelligence in making its case for war in Iraq. You’ll recall that the Phase One inquiry ended up in the whitewashed Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report that placed the blame on the intelligence community, a report that was orchestrated by Roberts, who subsequently broke his word to Democrats that there would be a Phase Two inquiry after the election.

This comes a day after Bush had Andrew Card give Harry Reid no notice of his selection of Alito, so it appears that the Democrats have decided that if Bush wants war, he’ll get one every day from now on. According to the rules apparently, the Democrats can move the Senate into closed session every day if they wish, until the majority deals with their concerns.

And for the record, the next time a GOP hack says the Democrats were engaging in a political stunt here, say two words: Terri Schiavo.

You can bet that one of the things Reid and Rockefeller are demanding to talk about with Roberts and Frist today behind closed doors is why Roberts still feels there is no reason to conduct any further inquiry into the Bush Administration's pre-war intelligence disinformation efforts when it now comes out that Cheney withheld information from Roberts and the Senate Select Committee.

Here, thanks to Josh Marshall, is Reid's statement which was made just prior to taking the Senate behind closed doors.

The Democrats have finally decided to go to war, and Reid obviously did this when he had the whole caucus lined up behind him in secrecy. Tell Reid what you think about this move here.

Update: Tom Daschle just told Ed Schultz on his show that he has been informed in the last fifteen minutes that Frist has now agreed to set up a bipartisan Senate Task Force of six senators from each party to establish a process to look into whether or not the Administration manipulated the intelligence and the Senate in advance of the vote on the war resolution.

Update Number 2: Reid, as you can see from the tone of the revised AP wire story above, now has forced Frist to make Pat Roberts re-open the Iraq WMD inquiry that Roberts whitewashed last year before the election.

Keep the pressure on Harry. Keep your foot on their throats, plain and simple. Men and women are dying over there every day due to the lies told by these criminals.