Senators to probe US weapons claims
A powerful US Senate committee is to hold hearings this month about why banned weapons have not been found yet in Iraq, it was reported today.
Senators have already requested the CIA probe whether pre-war assessments of Iraq’s weapons capacity were flawed, The New York Times said.
The influential Armed Services Committee, chaired by Senator John Warner, will now take up the issue.
He said “the situation is becoming one where the credibility of the administration and Congress is being challenged.”
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell could be called to testify before the panel.
Warner has stressed he believes “there has been no deception by the administration” in making its case for war against Iraq.
Henry Waxman, the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, called on President George Bush to explain why the White House cited documents that were later discredited to support its claims Saddam Hussein may have been pursuing nuclear weapons.
“To date, you have offered no explanation as to why you and your most senior advisers made repeated allegations based on forged documents,” Waxman said in a letter to the president.
He said that when the State Department first responded to his queries in March, the short reply he was sent raised “far more questions than it answers”.
Speaking in Rome, Powell said he believed there was “overwhelming” evidence Iraq had continued to develop weapons of mass destruction.
