Durbin on the Iraq intelligence

St. Louis Post Dispatch:

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., served on the Senate Intelligence Committee before assuming a party leadership post this year. He recalled committee meetings at which the CIA and Energy Department voiced "completely different views on what the aluminum tubes could be used for."

"And then I'd walk out and listen to (Rice) and Vice President Dick Cheney say that these tubes show the Iraqis are building nuclear weapons to threaten the Middle East and the United States. And because you're a member of the Intelligence Committee you can't say what you've heard in closed sessions," Durbin said. "I was angry. The American people were being misled into believing that the evidence was clear, and it was not."

Asked about the views of Bond and Voinovich that there was no evidence of misdeeds, Durbin said, "I couldn't disagree more. There are specific circumstances where the intelligence agencies advised the White House that certain information was wrong - and the president and vice president continued to repeat those statements to the American people."