WMD commission kicks off
2004-05-27 08:33
Washington - In its first official meeting, the president's commission investigating flawed intelligence on weapons of mass destruction heard from David Kay, the former Iraq weapons inspector whose criticism helped drive the panel's creation.
Kay, along with about a dozen other experts, appeared before the commission in a closed seven-hour session on Wednesday to brief the nine commissioners as they begin sorting out the quality of US intelligence on the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
President George W Bush formed the commission - called the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction - in February after increasing criticism involving the pre-war intelligence on Iraq's weapons programmes. Their existence was a key argument for the war that removed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power.
Kay, the former head of the Iraq Survey Group that is searching for the banned weapons, reinvigorated the debate on the war's justification when he resigned in January and questioned whether weapons of mass destruction would ever be found.
Kay did not return calls seeking comment after his commission appearance on Wednesday.
The panel also heard on Wednesday from current and former Iraq Survey Group officials and members of the National Intelligence Council. Commission spokesperson Larry McQuillan declined to provide names of the other individuals.
The meeting focused primarily on Iraq, although the commission will be looking at the threat from other countries and terrorist networks, according to a statement from the commission's chairperson, former senator Chuck Robb, a Democrat, and Republican Laurence Silberman, a senior judge on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
The panel will convene again on Thursday to hear from about a dozen more experts, McQuillan said. The commissioners have until the end of March 2005 to report to the president.
The meetings are closed to the public because of the classified nature of the materials. McQuillan said detailed minutes are being kept.
- AP