INTELLIGENCE BREAKDOWN

In July 2004 the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the first half of its report on prewar intelligence, concluding, “Most of the major key judgments in the Intelligence Community’s October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate … either were overstated, or were not supported by the underlying intelligence reporting.”

This might explain how the Bush administration, like the Clinton administration before it, misread Iraq’s capabilities. Phase 2 of the committee’s report, promised first by that fall and then after the November 2004 elections, was to examine whether assertions by government officials through the 1990s until Operation Iraqi Freedom were accurately backed by intelligence. That report has yet to appear, and the committee, recently known for its bipartisan achievements, looks as gridlocked as the rest of Washington.

This is particularly important now, with the issue of what to do about the White House’s warrantless surveillance program falling squarely in the committee’s domain.

Phase 2 seems to have come down to a series of unfortunate nonevents, press releases from Chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas and ranking Democrat John D. Rockefeller of West Virginia. One issues a statement on the progress or lack of progress on the report and the other issues a statement rebutting it. Last month, Sen. Rockefeller complained publicly via letter to Sen. Roberts about the absence of meetings. Sen. Roberts replied, also publicly, that a meeting had been scheduled for Feb. 16 and, “I think we can all agree that intelligence issues, especially in the middle of a war, should not be used as fodder for political advantage.”

Of course not.

This conflict affects how the committee addresses the surveillance program. A vote on an inquiry of the program was scheduled for today, and given the evasiveness of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before the Judiciary Committee, an inquiry seems necessary. But it cannot happen usefully before a committee that is squabbling to such an extent that, for instance, it fails to finish a report that should have been completed at least a year ago.

The intelligence committee, which includes Sen. Olympia Snowe, can rescue its reputation by setting a deadline for the Phase 2 report – May 1 or sometime near then should be enough time. Meanwhile, committee Democrats should have access to the same information that Republicans received from the White House this week so that the full committee can get to work on the serious business of deciding how Congress should serve as a check and balance in the administration’s surveillance initiative.

The single briefing of the full committee from the attorney general, which occurred last week, certainly isn’t sufficient. Any decision to delay a vote on an inquiry should be accompanied by a set of briefings in the coming weeks to allow the committee a full, if private, look at the program.

Keeping the squabbling private wouldn’t hurt either.