Bush Wants Probe of Iraq WMD Intelligence

WASHINGTON - President Bush said on Monday he would appoint a commission to investigate failures in intelligence used to justify the war against Iraq, but a top Democrat questioned whether the group would be independent.

Bush was moving toward an announcement in the next few days to establish the nine-member commission and decide who will be on it and the scope of the investigation.

Senior administration officials said the commission was expected to be given until next year to report back, instead of this year as Democrats demand.

This was seen as an attempt to avoid having the probe's results emerge as a campaign issue for Bush in his re-election drive this year.

"In terms of the timeline, I would just stress that it is important that the commission's work is done in a way that it doesn't become embroiled in partisan politics," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

Democrats want the commission to report back much sooner and to be authorized by Congress like the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"I think that it is important for us to have an independent commission, as I've said now on several occasions," said Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

"But it truly should be independent. It sounds as if the president is going to call for one where he gets to appoint each of the members and dictate the design and ultimately the circumstances under which they do their work," Daschle said.

Bush was responding to pressure from Republicans and Democrats in Congress for an independent probe into intelligence that said Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons when in fact none have been found.

Bush got a first-hand review of the problems with U.S. intelligence on Iraq over lunch with David Kay, the former chief U.S. weapons hunter in Iraq, who told Congress last week that "it turns out that we were all wrong, probably."

McClellan said: "This panel will be bipartisan....it will have the independent authority to do its job."  - Continued ...