President George W. Bush ordered the set up a bipartisan commission in the next few days to examine US intelligence operations, including a study of possible misjudgments about Iraq's unconventional weapons.
"I am putting together an independent, bipartisan commission to analyze where we stand, what we can do better as we fight this war against terror," Bush told reporters Monday as he met with his cabinet at the White House.
Earlier, US sources said the panel would also investigate failures to penetrate secretive governments and stateless groups that could attempt new attacks on the United States.
The president's decision came after mounting pressure on the White House from both Democrats and many ranking Republicans to deal with what the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee has termed "egregious" errors that overstated Baghdad's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and made Iraq appear far closer to developing nuclear weapons than it actually was.
Bush's agreement to establish an independent commission to review the Iraq intelligence failures was first reported Sunday by The Washington Post.
The officials described the commission the US leader will create as a "broader examination of American intelligence shortcomings - from Iran to North Korea to Libya - of which the Iraqi experience was only a part".
It should be noted, however, that the commission will not report back until after the November elections.
"It became clear to the president that he couldn't sit there and seem uninterested in the fact that the Iraq intel went off the rails," the Times cited an unnamed senior official as saying. "He had to do something, and he chose to enlarge the problem, beyond the Iraq experience."
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair faced mounting pressure to follow the example of the United States and order an inquiry into intelligence used to justify launching war on Iraq.
Michael Howard, head of Britain's opposition Conservative Party, was to put forward a parliamentary motion demanding a probe into the quality of data on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, AFP reported. (Albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
