Senator Roberts Delays Investigation Again

Republicans make noise from time to time that they have investigated various matters such as how flawed intelligience came to be used to justify the war in Iraq. As we saw on 60 minutes this past Sunday, the Republicans have done an excellent job of whitewashing the president and his advisers; Tyler Drumheller, the former head of covert operations in Europe makes it clear that his testimony was ignored. In the CBS article on the interview, Drumheller said:

"The American people want to believe the president. I have relatives who I've tried to talk to about this who say, 'Well, no, you can’t tell me the president had this information and just ignored it,'" says Drumheller. "But I think over time, people will look back on this and see this is going to be one of the great, I think, policy mistakes of all time."

It was clear in 2003 that something was very wrong with the case that Bush made for war. But Congressional investigations, if one can call them that, did not begin until 2004. Senator Pat Roberts delayed the most controversial part of the investigation (read: the parts most embarrassing to the president and Republicans) until after the 2004 election. Of course, Senator Roberts hasn't exactly followed through on his promise for real investigations. The stalling continues as we hear from The Hill (via War and Piece):

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he wants to divide his panel’s inquiry into the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq-related intelligence into two parts, a move that would push off its most politically controversial elements to a later time.

The inquiry has dragged on for more than two years, a slow pace that prompted Democrats to force the Senate into an extraordinary closed-door session in November. Republicans then promised to speed up the probe.

It is clear that Senator Roberts puts providing political cover for the president above finding answers that the American people have to right to know. There were no WMDs in Iraq and it's been obvious for some time that the problem was not CIA intelligience. Republicans control Congress but can any Republican be trusted to conduct real investigations these days on any issue? I'm not a fan of Senator Arlen Specter but there was a time before Bush came to power that Specter would occassionally conduct real hearings and real investigations. But Specter seems to have largely lost his courage to be an independent Republican. Roberts, of course, never had such a reputation but simply puts loyalty to the party above loyalty to US Constitution.