Finally, the Truth...Maybe

The Senate Intelligence Committee is finally planning to release those long-delayed reports on pre-war Iraq intelligence:

...[Yesterday] The Senate Intelligence Committee approved two of the reports in its oft-delayed, much-maligned investigation into whether the Bush administration misused intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq, committee chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas said.

One report focuses on former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's connections to terrorism and his alleged weapons of mass destruction program, and how they compare with pre-war intelligence assessments. The other assesses the intelligence agencies' use of information, much of which was later discredited, from the Iraqi National Congress, an influential exile group opposed to Saddam....

And the guy responsible for delaying them is none too happy with the White House:

The chairman, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, ... chastised the White House for efforts to classify most of the part that examines intelligence provided to the Bush administration by the Iraqi National Congress, an exile group.

Some people are taking this seriously, and see it as a rat/sinking ship moment. Maybe.

But Pat Roberts has been doing the administration's dirty work so assiduously and for so long that I can't help being a little skeptical. Remember that the first report was a whitewash, with no real content except in the minority response at the end. If these reports are similarly whitewashed, a little Specter-style faux criticism of the administration would go a long way toward giving them credibility with the Washington press corps.

Pat Roberts is Lucy. Jay Rockefeller is Charlie Brown. Call me cynical, but I'm not that optimistic that that pattern has changed.

(Hat tip: Steve M.)

[That's all, folks]