Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Commissioning Reform
- PART ONE PATTERNS OF COMMISSION INFLUENCE
- PART TWO COMMISSIONS AND COUNTERTERRORISM POLICY
- PART THREE CONCLUSION
- Appendix A Construction of the Data Set
- Appendix B National Security Commissions, 1981–2006
- Appendix C List of People Interviewed
- References
- Index
1 - Commissioning Reform
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Commissioning Reform
- PART ONE PATTERNS OF COMMISSION INFLUENCE
- PART TWO COMMISSIONS AND COUNTERTERRORISM POLICY
- PART THREE CONCLUSION
- Appendix A Construction of the Data Set
- Appendix B National Security Commissions, 1981–2006
- Appendix C List of People Interviewed
- References
- Index
Summary
On January 28, 2004, David Kay reported to Congress on his findings as head of the Iraq Survey Group, which President George W. Bush had formed to scour Iraq for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) after the 2003 U.S. invasion of that country. Kay testified that he had found no evidence of Iraqi WMD and that WMD stockpiles probably did not exist in Iraq at the time of the invasion. His report was immediately seized on by prominent Democrats, who argued that it showed Bush took the country to war under false pretenses, and called for an independent investigation of the administration's use of intelligence (Schlesinger and Milligan 2004).
Within days of Kay's testimony, Bush created a presidential commission, chaired by former Senator Charles Robb (D-VA) and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Laurence Silberman, to probe the intelligence community's capabilities and deficiencies related to foreign WMD programs. Bush's action was principally motivated by a desire to defuse the political pressure generated by the failure to find WMD in Iraq. As the Washington Post reported, Bush sought “to get out in front of a potentially dangerous issue that threaten[ed] to cloud his reelection bid” (Milbank and Priest 2004). In response, Democratic leaders charged that the commission's mandate was inadequate because it did not cover how intelligence had been handled by the Bush White House (Allen 2004).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Terrorism and National Security ReformHow Commissions Can Drive Change During Crises, pp. 1 - 10Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011