Roberts heavy-handed on Intel, Dems charge -The Hill

[Rose Siding]

Democratic members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence are in a quandary about how to respond after Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) defeated their proposals to change the panel’s rules and investigate the treatment of intelligence detainees.
.....
Their lack of headway poses a dilemma for them: Should they break the committee’s traditional nonpartisanship or keep it? That nonpartisanship gives Republicans only a one-vote advantage over Democrats. But it also gives the majority staff director unique control over almost the entire committee. Some Democrats say sticking to the present arrangement ties them to what they believe is the GOP’s feckless oversight of intelligence.
.....
Democrats believe Roberts is attempting to stymie an investigation of detainees to shield the administration from embarrassment. Revelations of the treatment of prisoners in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison was a major embarrassment in Bush’s first term, and recent reports of the deaths of detainees under CIA control, the rendition of prisoners to countries that use torture as an interrogation tool, and the existence of ghost detainees threaten to become a growing scandal in the second term.

“Senator Roberts ran the meeting like a despot,” a congressional aide said. “He would not allow any motion to be made seeking a committee investigation into interrogation issues, even though the requests from Senator Rockefeller for such an investigation went back to February 3rd. Similarly, he did not allow for separate votes on rules changes insisting that it be a consolidated motion. It was shocking, and it left members astounded at the lack of respect in how he conducted the meeting.”

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/040505/roberts.html

[GetTheRightVote]

1. Yes, it does make one wonder what they are hiding on Abu Ghraib

They must be afriad to have the truth come out on the prison and treatment of the prisoners.

:kick:

[atommom]

2. .... and Roberts says he's "losing patience" with all the questions ...

"I have to tell you I am losing a little patience with what appears to me to be an almost pathological obsession with calling into question the actions of men and women who are on the front lines of the war on terror."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45119-2005Mar17.html

He's covering up a lot for this administration, blocking inquiries into interrogation and dropping the investigation of how the WH used/misused the pre-war WMD intelligence. He needs to be voted out in the worst way...

[Rose Siding]

3. I called Rockefeller's DC ofc about this

Mentioned this article (they read The Hill), said I support him for continuing to try to get an investigation...BUT Robertson pulled this "despot" act weeks ago. Rockefeller is very measured and drips respectability -he STILL should be jumping up and down about this all over TV and print. We get only dribs and drabs of rpts from self-investigations now (with the occasional unattributed leak) but we HAVE to know about this stonewalling. We need to know when the dems are fighting and why.

I told 'em that I had the sense that whatever changes made in the Intel Committee in THIS Congress will only end up strengthening the Executive and making accountability even MORE impossible.

Nice kid- I believe he was paying attn and he said he'd deliver the mssg.