[House Report 109-224]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
109th Congress Report
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
1st Session 109-224
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REQUESTING THE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTING THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE TO
TRANSMIT TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES NOT LATER THAN 14 DAYS AFTER
THE DATE OF THE ADOPTION OF THIS RESOLUTION ALL DOCUMENTS IN THE
POSSESSION OF THE PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY OF DEFENSE RELATING TO
COMMUNICATIONS WITH OFFICIALS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM RELATING TO THE
POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES WITH RESPECT TO IRAQ
_______
September 16, 2005.--Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be
printed
_______
Mr. Hyde, from the Committee on International Relations, submitted the
following
ADVERSE REPORT
[To accompany H. Res. 408]
The Committee on International Relations, to whom was
referred the resolution (H. Res. 408) requesting the President
and directing the Secretary of Defense to transmit to the House
of Representatives not later than 14 days after the date of the
adoption of this resolution all documents in the possession of
the President and Secretary of Defense relating to
communications with officials of the United Kingdom relating to
the policy of the United States with respect to Iraq, having
considered the same, reports unfavorably thereon without
amendment and recommends that the resolution not be agreed to.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Purpose and Summary.............................................. 2
Background and Need for the Legislation.......................... 2
Hearings......................................................... 4
Committee Consideration.......................................... 4
Vote of the Committee............................................ 5
Committee Oversight Findings..................................... 5
New Budget Authority and Tax Expenditures........................ 5
Performance Goals and Objectives................................. 5
Constitutional Authority Statement............................... 5
New Advisory Committees.......................................... 5
Congressional Accountability Act................................. 5
Federal Mandates................................................. 5
Purpose and Summary
House Resolution 408 requests the President and directs the
Secretary of Defense to transmit to the House of
Representatives all information in the possession of the
President and the Secretary of Defense relating to
communication with officials of the United Kingdom between
January 1, 2001, and March 19, 2003, relating to the policy of
the United States with respect to Iraq.
Background and Need for the Legislation
House Resolution 408 is a resolution of inquiry, which
pursuant to Rule XIII, clause 7 of the Rules of the House,
directs the Committee to act on the resolution within 14
legislative days, or a privileged motion to discharge the
Committee is in order. H. Res. 408 was introduced and referred
to the Committee on International Relations on July 28, 2005,
and was ordered reported adversely by the Committee on
September 14, 2005.
Under the rules and precedents of the House, a resolution
of inquiry is one of the methods used by the House to obtain
information from the executive branch. According to Deschler's
Procedure it is a ``simple resolution making a direct request
or demand of the President or the head of an executive
department to furnish the House of Representatives with
specific factual information in the possession of the executive
branch.''\1\
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\1\Deschler's Precedents, H. Doc. No. 94-661, 94th Cong., 2d Sess.,
vol. 7, ch. 24, section 8.
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On July 28, 2005, Rep. Maurice Hinchey of New York
introduced H. Res. 408. Mr. Hinchey's resolution requests the
President to turn over to the House of Representatives all
documents, including telephone and electronic mail records,
logs, calendars, minutes, and memos, in the possession of the
President relating to communications with officials of the
United Kingdom from January 1, 2001, to March 19, 2003,
relating to the policy of the United States with respect to
Iraq, including any discussions or communications between the
President, then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, or
other Administration officials and officials of the United
Kingdom. The resolution also directs the Secretary of Defense
to turn over to the House of Representatives all documents,
including telephone and electronic mail records, logs,
calendars, minutes, and memos, in the possession of the
Secretary of Defense relating to communications with officials
of the United Kingdom from January 1, 2001, to March 19, 2003,
relating to the policy of the United States with respect to
Iraq, including any discussions or communications between any
Defense Department official, including Under Secretary of
Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, and Under Secretary of
Defense for Intelligence Dr. Stephen A. Cambone, and officials
of the United Kingdom.
H. Res. 408 apparently was introduced in response to
publication of a British document known as the ``Downing Street
Memo.'' The Downing Street Memo, as leaked to and published by
the press, was apparently written in connection with a meeting
between Tony Blair and British officials held on Downing Street
on July 23, 2002. The Memo was leaked to a member of the
British press and published in London's The Sunday Times on May
1, 2005. The heart of the Downing Street Memo is the
description of U.S. pre-war intelligence that included the view
that intelligence was being ``fixed'' around the policy.
Prior to introduction of H. Res. 408, thorough
investigations and lengthy reports were issued by the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, the Commission on the
Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding
Weapons of Mass Destruction (known as the Silberman-Robb
Commission), the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee,
and the British Hutton inquiry. None of these reports found any
evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce,
influence or pressure members of the intelligence community to
``fix'' intelligence.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reviewed the
record of intelligence on Iraq over the span of a decade
stretching back to the first Gulf War. The Senate's report ran
over 500 pages and was the product of over twelve months of
Committee review of over 45,000 pages of intelligence
documents, interviews of over 200 individuals including
National Security Council staff members, and four committee
hearings. Conclusion number 83 in the Senate Intelligence
Committee report entitled ``U.S. Intelligence Community's
Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq'' states: ``The
Committee did not find any evidence that Administration
officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts
to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction capabilities.''\2\ This conclusion, as is true of
the entire report, was approved by a unanimous, bipartisan vote
by the Senate Committee.
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\2\United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,
Conclusions of U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence
Assessments on Iraq, Conclusion 83, p. 25 (July 7, 2004), available at
http://intelligence.senate.gov/conclusions.pdf
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The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
reviewed U.S. intelligence regarding the amount or existence of
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, including the issues of
bias, dissenting views and how intelligence was disseminated,
and the linkages between Iraq and terrorist organizations. The
Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee
informed the House International Relations Committee that
Members of the International Relations Committee had been
granted access to the documentation provided by the Central
Intelligence Agency that the Intelligence Committee was
studying in its review. Again, no evidence of ``fixing''
intelligence surfaced in the course of this congressional
review.
The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the
United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (the
Silberman-Robb Commission) produced what is viewed as the
definitive report on pre-war intelligence. This was a blue-
ribbon, bipartisan commission headed by former Senator Charles
S. Robb and Judge Laurence H. Silberman, which included a
talented and experienced group of commissioners such as Senator
John McCain, Walter Slocombe, Judge Patricia Wald, and Lloyd
Cutler, and was supported by a bipartisan, experienced staff of
88 professionals and consultants. The following conclusions are
particularly relevant to H. Res. 408:
We conclude that the Intelligence Community was dead
wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. . . . Its principal
causes were the Intelligence Community's inability to
collect good information about Iraq's WMD programs,
serious errors in analyzing what information it could
gather, and a failure to make clear just how much of
its analysis was based on assumptions, rather than good
evidence.
. . .
After a thorough review, the Commission found no
indication that the Intelligence Community distorted
the evidence regarding Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction. What the intelligence professionals told
you about Saddam Hussein's programs was what they
believed. They were simply wrong.
. . .
Finally, we closely examined the possibility that
intelligence analysts were pressured by policymakers to
change their judgments about Iraq's nuclear,
biological, and chemical weapons programs. The analysts
who worked Iraqi's weapons issues universally agreed
that in no instance did political pressure cause them
to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments.\3\
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\3\Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States
Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (Silberman-Robb Commission),
Report to the President of the United States, 2, 11 (March 31, 2005).
In light of the number and thoroughness of these previous
inquiries made by congressional committees and special
commissions especially well-qualified in matters of
intelligence, it is unnecessary for the International Relations
Committee through this resolution agree to demand this wide-
range of documents and to repeat such inquiries. The House and
Senate Intelligence Committees, after thorough review of large
volumes of documents, found no evidence that the Administration
improperly used, coerced, manipulated, or ``fixed'' pre-war
intelligence. The Silberman-Robb Commission confirmed this
conclusion. Senator Pat Roberts, the Chairman of the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, referring to the numerous
reports on pre-war intelligence, aptly stated, ``I don't think
there should be any doubt that we have now heard it all
regarding prewar intelligence. I think that it would be a
monumental waste of time to replow this ground any further. We
should now turn our full attention to the future . . .''\4\
Given the extensive, multiple investigations of this issue, the
Committee deemed the document requests made in H. Res. 408 to
be unnecessary and voted to report it adversely.
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\4\Press Release, Senator Roberts' Remarks on the WMD Commission
Report (March 31, 2005), available at http://intelligence.senate.gov/
050331.htm
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Hearings
The Committee did not hold hearings on H. Res. 408.
Committee Consideration
On September 14, 2005, the Full Committee marked up the
resolution, H. Res. 408, pursuant to notice, in open session.
The Committee agreed to a motion to report the resolution
adversely to the House by a record vote of 23 ayes to 22 nays,
with one voting ``Present.''
Vote of the Committee
Clause (3)(b) of rule XIII of the Rules of the House of
Representatives requires that the results of each record vote
on an amendment or motion to report, together with the names of
those voting for or against, be printed in the Committee
report. The following record vote occurred during consideration
of H. Res. 408:
Vote to report to the House adversely:
Voting yes: Hyde, Smith (NJ), Burton, Gallegly, Ros-
Lehtinen, Rohrabacher, King, Chabot, Tancredo, Issa, Flake,
Davis, Green, Weller, McCotter, Harris, Wilson, Boozman,
Barrett, Mack, Fortenberry, McCaul, and Poe.
Voting no: Leach, Lantos, Berman, Ackerman, Menendez,
Brown, Sherman, Wexler, Engel, Delahunt, Meeks, Lee, Crowley,
Blumenauer, Berkley, Napolitano, Schiff, Watson, Smith (WA),
McCollum, Chandler and Cardoza.
Voting ``Present'': Paul
H. Res. 408 was ordered reported adversely to the House by
a vote of 23 ayes to 22 noes, with one voting ``Present.''
Committee Oversight Findings
The Committee held no oversight activities under clause
2(b)(1) of rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives.
New Budget Authority and Tax Expenditures
Clause 3(c)(2) of House Rule XIII is inapplicable because
H. Res. 408 does not provide new budgetary authority or
increased tax expenditures.
Performance Goals and Objectives
The rule requiring a statement of performance goals and
objectives is inapplicable.
Constitutional Authority Statement
Pursuant to clause 3(d)(1) of rule XIII of the Rules of the
House of Representatives, the Committee finds the authority for
this resolution in article I, section 1 of the Constitution.
New Advisory Committees
H. Res. 408 does not establish or authorize any new
advisory committees.
Congressional Accountability Act
H. Res. 408 does not apply to the legislative branch.
Federal Mandates
H. Res. 408 provides no Federal mandates.