The Washington Post will run a front page story tomorrow titled "
Congressional Oversight of Intelligence Criticized." According to the article, although a number of members of Congress asked for access to intelligence documents related to 9/11, "[n]o more than six senators and a handful of House members read beyond the five-page National Intelligence Estimate executive summary." The article also notes that the Senate Intelligence Committee held only one or two meetings on al Qaeda in the months leading up to 9/11.
This tactic is pretty transparent. The fact is, the CIA is an Executive Branch agency. Congress can not direct the CIA to take any action or to change any policy, and the congressional inteligence committees do not receive nearly the amount of data and information as the President. Unlike the Executive Branch, there is no evidence that Congress received word that al Qaeda was planning imminent attacks in the United States, that al Qaeda had discussed flying airplanes into buildings, or that al Qaeda operatives were taking flight lessons in the United States.
While it is a bit embarassing that so many members of Congress would vote to send our troops to war without even bothering to look at the intelligence concerning WMD's (the argument that they are too busy being bothered with pesky constituent meetings is almost as lame as whatever the hell it is Chuck Schumer is trying to say), this article is part of a calculated GOP plan to shift attention away from Bush's failure to act on the pre-9/11 intelligence that pointed to an attack by al Qaeda.