Partisan feud

last updated 8 January 2015

Washington, D.C.

The Senate Intelligence Committee this week canceled all meetings scheduled for the rest of the year after a partisan feud erupted over an investigation of prewar intelligence reports on Iraq. The controversy started when a memo from a Democratic staff member was given to Republican radio host Sean Hannity. In the memo, the staffer outlined a strategy for using the committee’s hearings to damage President Bush politically, by publicly exposing contradictions between intelligence reports on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs and what Bush said the intelligence showed. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) accused Democrats of politicizing the committee’s work, and he demanded an apology. Democrats said the memo only reflected their frustration over the refusal of their Republican colleagues to look into whether the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence reports to strengthen the case for war.