US Senate meets in private session

November 1, 2005

The United States Senate met behind closed doors on Tuesday under pressure to investigate the intelligence that led to the war in. The rare parliamentary rule invoked by the Democrats forces the removal of all media, staff, and tourists from the chamber. Congress will stop working on legislation temporarily.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid stated that a private session was justified by the fact that the indictment of Lewis Libby showed how the administration manipulated the intelligence in order to justify the War on Iraq. President made his case on the war by citing U.S. intelligence showed Iraq with the possessions of weapons of mass destruction. Both the U.N. weapon inspector team and the U.S. military found no such weapons.

Conservatives saw the unusual maneuver as a ploy to distract the public from President Bush's recent nomination of to the  and dismissed the investigation, which has been in the news over the past several days with the resignation of Vice President Cheney's aide  after the disclosure that Libby lied under oath about leaking information that would provocate war between Iraq and the U.S.