Pressure builds for Bush decision on Iraq WMD probe

The White House and key congressional leaders on Sunday negotiated details of an independent commission to investigate intelligence failures before the Iraq war and a senior Democrat said the probe should include whether decision-makers misused information. President George W. Bush, who had earlier opposed such a commission, was under strong pressure from members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, to support an independent probe into intelligence that said Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons when in fact none have been found. The weapons issue was the main reason cited by Bush for the war, in which more than 500 U.S. troops have now died.

I’m close to speechless here, and so soon after I had written that there was probably no chance that such a thing would happen under this administration…. frankly, that the Bush administration would even entertain the idea of an independent investigation almost floors me.

In thinking about this I come to the conclusion that it’s all about the election. Any absolute refusal for any type of investigation gives ammunition to the Democrats, this tactic takes the ole “So what is he hiding anyway?” bullet away from them and gives the American people that warm fuzzy feeling that their president is concerned about this. Additional questions to consider are:

* What will the investigation parameters be? They will be negotiated and it’s unlikely that the current administration is going to give anything away they absolutely do not have to.

* What sort of co-operation will the Whitehouse actually give the investigation? Recall the number of complaints regarding the Whitehouse stalling or being uncooperative with the 9/11 commission - how many times will we see a refusal to provide information or co-operate on the grounds of “national security interests”?

* Will the investigation be public? In the interests of a fair, open, and transparent investigation they should be.

* When will reports start being released? I don’t see anything being allowed out before Bush has to go to the polls in November, the potential for information that could well damage his reselection bid coming out is too high. It would be nice to be proven wrong on this one as well, time will tell.

As interesting a development as this is none on the right who follow this site will be surprised to hear that my suspicions are that Bush’s motivations here are less than sparkling pure and pristine. This comes as a result of pressure from both the Republican and Democratic sides of congress that the current simple can no longer ignore, and I’m sure Bush and Co. are not the least bit happy about it.

(The content of this post came from an older pMachine incarnation of stageleft with a different hosting company - comments, if any, didn’t make it into the rebuild)