Sen. Sessions Skewers Democrats on WMD Rhetoric

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) called on his Democratic colleagues Thursday to stop their false and destructive criticism of the Bush administration's handling of pre-war intelligence.

"This Senate," Sessions warned, "should never, never, never parrot the false charges of our enemies."

"The world hears what we say here," he continued, "Please remember that exaggerated political charges can do more than sting our political opponents here at home."

Sessions was responding to recent claims of Senate Democrats that the Bush administration misled the American public into the Iraq war.

On November 1, Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) invoked a rarely used procedural rule to alter the Senate's agenda, alleging the Bush administration "manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq."


Sessions responded directly to those claims. "Our leaders did not lie us into war," he said. "We Senators heard the same intelligence and we voted to authorize this war."


Making false charges for domestic political gains is dangerous and wrong," Sessions said. "Undermining our nation's position in the world, encouraging our enemy to falsely believe that this nation is divided, and leading the enemy to believe that we may quit if they just kill a few more soldiers or Marines is wrong, wrong, wrong."


Sessions then mentioned a series of reports that clear the administration of what Republicans claim are slanderous allegations.

He noted:

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued a unanimous bipartisan report in July 2004 clearing the administration of charges of manufacture or manipulation of pre-war intelligence.

The Robb-Silverman Report, partially named for co-chairman and former Democratic Senator Charles Robb (D-Va.), concluded there was "no evidence of political pressure to influence the intelligence community's pre-war assessment of Iraq's weapons programs."

The final United Nations report upon exiting Iraq concluded Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Sessions pointed out, "virtually all intelligence agencies in the world, including the French who were certainly not under our control, agreed."
Other Republicans might soon join Sessions in excoriating Democrats for their "Bush lied" rhetoric.

Anonymous White House aides told CNN Tuesday that they are planning a "campaign-style" strategy. They plan to provide GOP officials with quotes by prominent Democrats who made similar pre-war claims regarding Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

Republicans will not have to look far. Most Democrat leaders - including former President Bill Clinton - made statements strikingly similar to those made by Bush administration officials in the months preceding the Iraq war.

Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) noted the Web site of Senator Reid in a speech on the Senate floor Monday.

"What is my position on Iraq?" Reid asked on his own Web site as recently as Monday.

"Saddam Hussein is an evil dictator," Reid answers, "who presents a serious threat to international peace and security. Under Saddam's rule, Iraq has engaged in far-reaching human rights abuses, been a state sponsor of terrorism, and has long sought to obtain and develop weapons of mass destruction."