The US Senate Intelligence Committee chairman says his panel will decide whether to hold hearings on complaints that the Bush administration exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq after it has reviewed the relevant secret documents.
Sen. Pat Roberts said his panel will go through documents he expected the White House to turn over in the next few days that were the basis for public charges made by President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and others that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Roberts, a Kansas Republican, hedged on whether he would hold hearings, even though Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, a Virginia Republican, said on Monday he planned committee hearings, perhaps jointly with the intelligence panel.
"We have not ruled out hearings by any means," Roberts said. But first the staffs of the two committees would go through the documents "and at the end of that juncture we'll see what steps we're going to take."
Democrats and many Republicans embraced Warner's plan for a public airing of Bush's basis for charging that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was pursuing nuclear weapons.
The alleged weapons have not been found weeks after the war, although the administration has said it still expects to find them. It has also suggested Saddam may have destroyed them before the fighting began.
"Obviously I think that we will over time find it. It's a big country," said Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain. "But I think it's perfectly appropriate" for the committees to hold hearings, he said.
Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, top Senate Intelligence Committee Democrat, said the panels should "jointly conduct a formal, bipartisan investigation of the accuracy of our prewar intelligence".
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, backed hearings but said "it's too early to know" if Bush exaggerated or miscalculated the threat.
But lines also were drawn according to party allegiance.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat running for president, said "the administration led this nation into war based on lies," and said he will push a resolution demanding the release of intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, said Bush had ample grounds to oust Saddam, beyond the alleged weapons program, and blamed any misinformation on "the devastation" of U.S. intelligence capabilities under former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat.