Harry Reid is still on top of the effort by Republicans to prevent the next
phase of the pre-war intelligence report to be completed. Today he
released a statement
about the situation:

Washington, DC – On the eve of the two-year anniversary of the start of
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s investigation into prewar
intelligence, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid released the following
statement:

“It was reported today that our government’s former top intelligence
officer for Middle East issues has described the troubling misuse of
intelligence on Iraq by the Bush Administration to take the country to war.
On the same day, we learn that Scooter Libby was directed by the Vice
President and others to leak sensitive national security secrets to publicly
sell the Administration’s case. Evidence that the Bush White House
manipulated and selectively declassified intelligence to wage a public
relations campaign before, during, and after the invasion of Iraq grows
every day.

“Now more than ever, it is critical that Congress completes a full and
thorough investigation into whether this Administration did mislead the
American people into a long and costly war in Iraq. This Sunday marks the
two-year anniversary of the launch of the Senate Select Intelligence
Committee’s investigation into prewar intelligence. That investigation is
still not complete. Our troops and the American people expect and deserve
that this investigation be thorough and be completed so that the lessons can
finally be learned and these mistakes can never happen again.”

The story he is talking about is this:

A former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle
East during the Iraq invasion accused the White House of misusing prewar
intelligence to justify its case for war.

Paul Pillar, who was national intelligence officer for the Near East and
South Asia from 2000 to 2005, also said the Senate intelligence committee
and a presidential commission overlooked evidence that the Bush
administration politicized the intelligence process to support White House
policymakers.

“Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was flawed but even with
its flaws, it was not what led to the war,” Pillar said in an article
written for the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs and posted on the
magazine’s Web site on Friday.

“If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a
policy implication, it was to avoid war — or, if war was going to be
launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath,” he said.

Article continues

here.

What it comes down to is the fact that Republicans know what happened in the
White House and are scared to death to release this report because of the damage
it might do to their party and Bush. I have a funny feeling Roberts will
continue to stonewall on the report until we get close to election time then he
will say that he won’t release it because of the ramifications it may have on
the elections. Remember – he also did this in 2004.

Sounds like Harry needs to “hijack” Senate some more and keep doing it until
the Republicans learn to accept responsibility and complete what has been
promised for well over a year now.