MR. RUSSERT: When will we see phase two of your investigation about the shaping or exaggeration of intelligence by policy-makers?
SEN. ROBERTS: I hope this doesn't take too long. There are three phases to phase two. One is to compare the public statements by the administration on all public officials, including the Congress, with the intelligence matrix that we have. Why did you say what you said in regards to some administration official, in regards to some policy-making? And you can go back over some declarative and aggressive statements. Also you can find the same people who are the very top critics of those comments making the same comments. And so you get down to: Did the intelligence--was it really credible? No. It was a mistake. That influenced the comments of the people concerned.
Now, we can put out 50 different statements by the administration, which we've been provided by the Democrats, and we can also put out 50 different statements by members of Congress, including me--I don't know about Jay, but I think that's the case--and say: "What was in your head? What were you thinking? What was the use of it?" My whole point is--and also to get back to the pressure--the pressure question really involves repetitive questioning. In my view, there wasn't enough repetitive questioning to make sure that the analysts at the DOE, State Department, whatever, that those concerns were put into the national intelligence estimate. I don't think that repetitive questioning of analysts, which they expect, amounts to pressure.
Now, there's two more things. One is the Office of Special Plans under the Department of Defense. Now, we've had a statement basically saying that some of the activities may have been illegal. Everybody down there got a lawyer. I would love to get Doug Feith, who is the undersecretary in charge of the Office of Special Plans, back before the committee. We are willing and able to do that anytime that the minority wishes.
And finally, there's the prewar intelligence on the postwar insurgency in Iraq. We have found to date that that was scattered all over the place. Everybody expected a humanitarian wave of assistance. It didn't happen. So they got that wrong, too. All three things we can complete, but we do also have the confirmation of the DNI working with the Intelligence Reform Act, being much more aggressive in terms of the capability of the hard targets that certainly face America. And to go back in and to keep going over this over and over again, I'm more than happy to finish this, and I want to finish it, but we have other things that we need to do.
MR. RUSSERT: But as you well know, when your report came out there were many people who said that you were not going forward with phase two about exaggerations and shaping because you didn't want to involve yourself, influence the election. You made a firm commitment to do just that.
SEN. ROBERTS: Yeah, we're going to do that, Tim.
MR. RUSSERT: The United States went to war...SEN. ROBERTS: Tim, we're going to do that. I will bring it here. We'll have the 50 statements. We'll have the intelligence. We can match it up and you can do it with members of Congress, who are very, very critical, who made the same things, and you can say, "OK," and you'll say "Well, Pat, it just looks to me that the intelligence was wrong and that's exactly why they said what they said." Now, I don't know what that accomplishes over the long term. I'm perfectly willing to do it, and that's what we agreed to do, and that door is still open. And I don't want to quarrel with Jay, because we both agreed that we would get it done. But we do have--we have Ambassador Negroponte next week, we have General Mike Hayden next week. We have other hot-spot hearings or other things going on that are very important. So we will get it done, but it seems to me that we ought to put it in some priority of order, and after we do get it done I think everybody's going to scratch their head and say, "OK, well, that's fine. You know, let's go to the real issue."
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