Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Some Senators who OK'd war didn't read key report.

From CNN:

• Hillary Clinton, John McCain and most others in Congress didn't read document

• Newspaper: Six senators, a few House members logged as reading report
• Most in Congress were briefed several times, read summary of report
• Report was wrong about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A new biography of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has once again raised the issue of whether members of Congress read a key intelligence report before the 2002 vote to authorize war in Iraq.
Clinton did not read the 90-page, classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, according to "Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton."

In order for members of Congress to read the report, they had to go to a secure location on Capitol Hill. The Washington Post reported in 2004 that no more than six senators and a handful of House members were logged as reading the document.

Clinton is one of six presidential candidates who were in the Senate in October 2002 who voted for the resolution to authorize the invasion of Iraq.
Candidate and then-Sen. John Edwards "read and was briefed on the intelligence" while sitting on the Senate Intelligence Committee, a spokesman said. Edwards has called his vote for the 2002 resolution a mistake. Another Democratic candidate, Sen. Joseph Biden, said he read the report.

A spokesman for presidential candidate Sen. Christopher Dodd said the Connecticut Democrat did not read the document, either.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona also voted in favor of the resolution without reading the report.

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