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Rice Faces Congress Grilling
Iraq`s prewar nuclear intentions.
Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, said the panel wants to learn how the White House came to make bogus assertions that Iraq had been trying to obtain enriched uranium from Niger.
Waxman said that Rice`s tenure as President Bush`s national security adviser during his first term in the White House gives her unique insights into why the administration pressed its claim about the Niger uranium.
Bush amplified the assertions in a State of the Union speech shortly before the 2003 invasion.
But Rice`s spokesman Sean McCormack said her discussions with the president on the matter were off limits to the committee.
"It`s the position of the White House that those matters are covered by executive privilege," McCormack told reporters, when asked whether she would comply if subpoenaed.
McCormack said Rice`s discussions with the president were privileged, and as such off limits to Congress, although she would try to provide whatever information she could.
Allegations that Iraq was seeking to build weapons of mass destruction provided the main justification for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
Waxman, a California Democrat and longtime Bush administration gadfly, expressed frustration with Rice`s cooperation thus far.
"For four years I have been trying to get information from Secretary Condoleezza Rice on a variety of issues, including the reference to uranium and Niger in the president`s 2003 State of the Union speech," Waxman said.
"My goal is to conduct investigations without subpoenas. But if we are stonewalled, then we can`t hesitate then to call up the powers that are available to us," he said.
Deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey, speaking as the House panel met, said the issue had been scrutinized extensively in the past and he questioned the Democrats` motives in authorizing a subpoena for Rice.
"This is perhaps the most investigated single issue we have over the last several years," Casey said. "It`s been addressed by various commissions ... and any number of other bodies that have looked at this."
He added: "I think you have to question the motivation behind looking at something that, in effect, has been addressed and answered multiple times."