Partisan bickering over intelligence that President Bush used to justify the war on Iraq escalated Friday as minority Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee announced they would conduct their own investigation.

The panel's senior Democrat, Carl Levin of Michigan, said the Democrats had decided to undertake their own review because the panel's Republican chairman, John Warner of Virginia, had spurned an offer for a bipartisan inquiry.

...some senior diplomatic, intelligence and military officials have charged that Bush and his top aides made assertions about Iraq's banned weapons programs and alleged links to al-Qaida that weren't supported by credible intelligence, and that they ignored intelligence that didn't support their policies.

Among the examples they cite are contentions, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, that Iraq had restarted the nuclear weapons program that was all but destroyed in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and by U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors.

USA Today: Senate Dems begin inquiry into Iraq intelligence

Robert Dreyfuss: Could WMD become Bush’s Watergate?

Ted Rall: A Crack In Bush's Facade

Truthout: Senate Dems Begin Inquiry Into Iraq Intelligence

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