Liz Saville Roberts: “our review in the Intelligence Committee began in earnest in early June of last year when the intelligence community did…”

“our review in the Intelligence Committee began in earnest in early June of last year when the intelligence community did provide our committee with 19 volumes--19 volumes, floor to ceiling--and they contained approximately 15,000 pages of intelligence assessments and sources and source reporting underlying the assessments of the Hussein regime's WMD programs. They also pertained to ties to terrorist groups, the threat to stability and security in the region, as I have said before, and the repression of his own people. Our committee staff began immediately to read and analyze every report provided to determine how intelligence analysts reached their conclusions and whether any assessments were not supported by the intelligence provided to the committee. Our committee staff endeavored to the greatest extent possible to disregard--to disregard--postwar revelations concerning Iraq in order to replicate the same analytical environment enjoyed by the intelligence community analysts prior to the war. In late August and early September of 2003, our committee staff did request additional intelligence to substantiate the intelligence community's assessments which staff judged were not sufficiently supported by the intelligence that had been previously provided. Not only did we ask for the original information, but when we were not satisfied, we asked for more; we demanded more.…”