Senate May Widen Its Inquiry Into Prewar Intelligence

Democratic and Republican senators weighed expanding their probe of the prewar intelligence on Iraq on Wednesday after spending nearly five hours pressing CIA Director George J. Tenet to account for questionable claims regarding Baghdad’s nuclear program and the broader failure to find banned weapons.

The closed-door hearing marked Tenet’s first appearance before lawmakers since an eruption of finger-pointing last week between the White House and the CIA over who was to blame for President Bush’s ill-founded allegation in the State of the Union address that Iraq had sought to procure uranium from Africa. Democrats said they would like to hear from White House officials next, and even a key Republican, Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, chairman of the intelligence committee, indicated that administration officials could be asked to testify.

Tenet issued an extraordinary statement Friday accepting blame for not striking the uranium language from the speech, though he also made it clear that the agency had expressed concern and had let it stand only when White House officials proposed attributing it to British intelligence.

Tenet did not comment to reporters after Wednesday’s hearing. Sources who took part in the session said Tenet told lawmakers that he did not read the State of the Union speech before it was delivered and that agency staffers involved in vetting the text did not call the uranium language to his attention.

A U.S. official said this was in contrast to an earlier case, in October, when agency officials alerted Tenet to a similar reference in a speech Bush delivered in Cincinnati. Tenet intervened in that case to have the language removed.

Roberts said that Tenet, during his testimony, reiterated his responsibility for the uranium claim.

Roberts credited the CIA chief with being “forthright” in responding to questions but said that Tenet would probably be called to testify before the committee again -- perhaps in open session in September. The senator indicated that White House officials could be called to appear before the committee.

Sen. John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), vice chairman of the committee, described the questioning of Tenet as “very vigorous.” He was among a number of Democrats to emerge from the session suggesting that the committee should next be calling on White House officials to testify.

“Director Tenet took the blame,” Rockefeller said. “There remains in my mind the question of whether in fact that’s where it should stop.” Rockefeller said he and Roberts were discussing how to manage the expansion of an inquiry that started as a review of prewar intelligence documents but has now become “a very large project.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) praised Tenet for forthright answers and characterized his statement last week accepting blame as “overgenerous.”

“My view is that there are others who should step up to the plate as well,” Feinstein said. “We’ll see if that happens.”

Rockefeller and others have singled out national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, believing that her staff pressed to have the uranium language included in Bush’s speech despite widespread doubts about its reliability. Rice, in recent days, has denied any pressure.

Bush delivered the State of the Union speech on Jan. 28, at a time when he was still struggling to win international support for confronting Iraq by force.

“It is my belief there were some [in the White House] who were pushing, pushing, pushing” the intelligence on Iraq to make the case for war more compelling, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), a member of the committee, told CNN.

Bayh was among a number of members, both Democrat and Republican, who emerged from the session voicing support for Tenet and saying they do not believe he should resign.

Bush’s allegation in the State of the Union was based largely on documents purporting to show that Iraq had sought to acquire uranium from the African nation of Niger. Those documents, obtained by Italian authorities, were shared with the United States last October. But it wasn’t until March -- when the documents were examined by U.N. inspectors -- that they were shown to be forgeries.

The CIA’s record on its handling of the uranium allegation is mixed. It included the allegation in a key prewar assessment of Iraq’s weapons programs but voiced skepticism about the claim in other settings. Tenet intervened personally in October, for instance, urging White House officials to drop the Niger allegation from the speech Bush gave in Cincinnati.

The issue has become a significant problem for the White House. Wednesday’s hearing was attended by a throng of cameras and news crews that was larger than the media turnout for key hearings last year on the Sept. 11 attacks.

Democratic presidential hopefuls have seized on the uranium claim and have become far more aggressive in their criticism of the Bush administration’s case for war and handling of its aftermath.

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) on Wednesday challenged the truthfulness of Bush and suggested that the country was no safer now than it was before the Sept. 11 attacks, a broadside that reflected the new eagerness of Democrats to challenge the administration’s war on terrorism.

“With each passing day, Americans are learning we ... face an intelligence gap,” Kerry said in a speech in New York City. “Americans should be able to trust that what the president tells them is true -- especially when it comes to the life-and-death decisions of war and peace.”

For months, the leading Democratic presidential candidates had muted their criticisms of Bush and his foreign policy, as polls showed overwhelming public support for the war in Iraq.

The major exception was former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who used his antiwar stance to launch himself into the top tier of contenders.

But lately other Democrats -- including those, such as Kerry, who voted to support the war -- have joined in the criticism, as the aftermath of the U.S. invasion grows messier and the administration fends off accusations that it used dubious intelligence to justify war.

The only presidential candidate on the intelligence committee, Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), said Wednesday that Bush was ultimately to blame for any misinformation he gave the American people.

“The responsibility is not the CIA’s, it’s not anyone else’s,” Edwards told reporters. “It is the president’s responsibility.”