Fighting Words, Revisited
Mark Hosenball
NEWSWEEK

Back in 2004, when the Senate intelligence committee began investigating whether public statements by U.S. officials about Saddam Hussein’s pre-invasion Iraq were “substantiated” by existing intel, Republicans controlled Congress and the committee’s inquiry was aimed at figures on both sides of the aisle. The idea was to examine the fighting words of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney as well as prominent Democrats including Al Gore, Sen. John Kerry and Sen. Hillary Clinton. But Democrats, who took over the panel after winning Senate control in 2006, decided that the final report would examine only statements by “policymakers”—in other words, the Bush administration. So in the report, due out this week, no Democratic comments will be parsed. That includes an Oct. 10, 2002, speech by Clinton in which she criticized Saddam’s WMD ambitions and accused him of giving “aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members.” (Continued…)