Investigating WMD intelligence failures

By ANDREW BUNCOMBE in Washington and KIM SENGUPTA

President Bush yesterday appointed a panel of figures plucked from the Washington establishment to investigate the so-called intelligence failures over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The seemingly bi-partisan panel will not have to report back until well after this year's presidential election.

Amid growing pressure to explain why the administration's pre-war claims about Saddam's arsenal have been proved wrong, Mr Bush named seven members of what will be a nine person panel to carry out a wide-ranging inquiry.

Among those named by Mr Bush were Senator John McCain, Charles Robb, son-in-law of President Lyndon Johnson and a former governor of Virginia, and retired judge Laurence Silberman.

The inclusion of Senator McCain, often an outspoken critic, is in clear contrast to Tony Blair's appointment of former Cabinet Secretary Lord Butler.

Critics have already dismissed Lord Butler's inquiry as likely to be a Hutton style whitewash.

Eleven backbenchers, including Peter Kilfoyle, a former defence minister, have signed a Commons motion declaring that the former civil servants service under three Prime Ministers " undermines his credibility as a fair and impartial chairman."

Lord Butler exonerated Jonathan Aitken, after an inquiry into his visit to the Paris Ritz hotel owned by Mohamed Al Fayed. The Conservative MP was later jailed for perjury following a court case over the affair. Lord Butler also defended Whitehall deceit during the Scott Inquiry into arms to Iraq.

Mr Bush has been under considerable pressure to explain why the pre-invasion claims he made about Saddam's WMD have been proved false and the White House has been involved in a determined effort to shift responsibility to the intelligence community.

This week the intelligence community hit back with the CIA director, George Tenet, insisting that the agency's analysts had never said Saddam was "an imminent threat".

Democrats sense Mr Bush's growing vulnerability on the issue of WMD and have been stepping up their attacks on him. In an effort to try and regain the momentum, Mr Bush has opted for a somewhat risky strategy of appearing this week on a Sunday morning political talk show, "Meet the Press".

The show's host, Tim Russert, is known for being less dogged when interviewing cabinet officials than his normal guests, but his persistent and detailed questioning could discomfort Mr Bush.

Strategists believe, however, that if Mr Bush gives a convincing performance on the influential show, it might help him move on from the WMD issue.

Meanwhile, the President spoke yesterday with Charles Duelfer, the newly appointed head of America's efforts to discover WMD in Iraq, telling him he "wants him to find the truth ... it is important that we know all the facts."

With no weapons having been found and with Mr Duelfer's predecessor at the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), David Kay, publicly stating he believes no such weapons existed, the focus of the ISG has shifted to trying to explain what Saddam did with any weapons that existed during the 1990s.

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Herald Feature: Iraq