Bill Bennett calls for Senator Rockefeller to step down from his seat on the Senate Intelligence Committee for doing what he admitted doing to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. Senator Rockefeller said the following:
I took a trip by myself in January of 2002 to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq - that that was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11.
Bennett calls for "an investigation, now, into what exactly Senator Jay Rockefeller told Syria and just what Syria might have done with the information made available to them presumably before it was made available to the U.N., the Senate, or the American people."
He goes on to write that:
Senators and congressmen don't have to agree with their president's policies, and they should make the president robustly defend his policies - but they should not be acting as if they are the president or secretary of state; they should not be tipping off sometimes friends and definitive enemies about war plans that not even the president has yet made as policy. This is the true mockery of prewar intelligence, and Senator Rockefeller should fully explain his actions.
If Syria - or elements in Saudi Arabia - began acting on this information before we even went to war in Iraq (more than a year later), then Senator Rockefeller may have seriously harmed, impeded, and hindered our war efforts, our troops, and the entire operation in the Middle East. This should be investigated immediately; and perhaps Senator Rockefeller should step down from the Intelligence Committee until an investigation is complete.
What is a guy this loose-lipped doing on the Senate Intelligence Committee in the first place, for heaven sakes? It's boneheaded blabbermouths like Rockefeller who are the reason Democrats have such difficulty convincing the American public that they can be trusted with our national defense.