Flack: For Months, Tech "Snafu" Kept Key Intel Docs from Lawmakers [View All]

[The Sushi Bandit]

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001863.php

For five months this year, the House intelligence committee had a crucial intelligence report on the increasing threat of terrorism in the wake of the Iraq War -- yet not a single member read it. That's including the panel's chairman, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-IL) and the ranking member Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA).

In fact, an untold number of classified documents were kept from the members of the vital oversight committee from at least April to September of this year, according to the chairman's spokesman. In an interview yesterday, he blamed the months-long delay on technical problems with the "equipment" which handles the reports. (Harman's office did not return our phone calls and emails requesting comment.)

Hoekstra's spokesman told the Washington Post last month that a computer problem had delayed for months the distribution of the now-infamous National Intelligence Estimate on terror and the Iraq war, which was eventually leaked to the New York Times.