Senator Harry Reid calls for bill to oversee Iran intel

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060611/1072921.asp



WASHINGTON - Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Saturday he will introduce legislation to assure that intelligence about Iran is accurate.

The proposal "will require intelligence community professionals to monitor and back up in writing every word administration officials utter about Iran," Reid told the YearlyKos Convention in Las Vegas, a gathering of Democratic bloggers. "Everything they say will have to be supported by facts."

Reid's bill would require an updated national intelligence estimate on Iran, with an unclassified summary made public. It also would require President Bush to report to Congress on his objectives and strategies for Iran.

The administration's national intelligence director also would have to show Congress that he has a process in place for reviewing administration officials' statements and ensuring they are consistent with the work of professional intelligence analysts.

"Everything they say will have to be supported by facts," Reid said. "I have no doubt the White House won't like this requirement, but after what happened in Iraq, the American people deserve nothing less."

credibility. He said we would invade and occupy an oil rich nation in the ME... so be it.

perhaps the President shouldn't have been given blank checks to begin with!

This has been tried before. This is just theatrics. So such a bill gets passed. Then what? The president will dutifully sign it and then proclaim he doesn't have to obey it. Then the congress will just ignore it.

We've seen this over and over again. In fact, I believe there was a requirement passed a while back that required bush give some kind of "progress report" on Iraq at regular intervals. Well, the first "report" was supposed to occur last week, and bush unilaterally "canceled" it. What did the congress do about it? Nothing.

These guys know how to talk the necessary talk for the crowd they're addressing, but it's all a sham.