Levin needs to explain:

“On 19 September 2002, Senator Carl Levin ‚Äî by then Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee ‚Äî addressed a committee hearing on U.S. policy on Iraq. His introductory remarks included the following:

The Armed Services Committee meets this afternoon to continue our hearings on U.S. policy toward Iraq. The purpose of these hearings is to give the Administration an opportunity to present its position on Iraq, and to allow this Committee to examine the Administration’s proposal with Administration witnesses and experts outside of the government.

We welcome Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers to the Committee. Next week the Committee will hear from former senior military commanders on Monday and from former national security officials on Wednesday.

We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandates of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.”

This is what Levin and a slew of other Democrats believed in 2002 and even predating that year. Yet after the invasion of Iraq when Democrats saw a way to rekindle their 60s antiwar movement, Levin changed his tune.

Today’s Washington Posts writes about the the newly released Pentagon IG report that had been released in summary in Feb.

“Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides “all confirmed” that Hussein’s regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.

The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community’s prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.

The report’s release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq “before we ever launched” the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.

“This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq,” Cheney told Limbaugh’s listeners about Zarqawi, who he said had “led the charge for Iraq.” Cheney cited the alleged history to illustrate his argument that withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq would “play right into the hands of al-Qaeda.”

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), who requested the report’s declassification, said in a written statement that the complete text demonstrates more fully why the inspector general concluded that a key Pentagon office — run by then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith — had inappropriately written intelligence assessments before the March 2003 invasion alleging connections between al-Qaeda and Iraq that the U.S. intelligence consensus disputed.”

Of course as I noted here there is a tale-tell connection here alright. It’s between Gimble and Levin. Feith notes the same:

“Feith has vigorously defended his work, accusing Gimble of “giving bad advice based on incomplete fact-finding and poor logic,” and charging that the acting inspector general has been “cheered on by the chairmen of the Senate intelligence and armed services committees.” In January, Feith’s successor at the Pentagon, Eric S. Edelman, wrote a 52-page rebuttal to the inspector general’s report that disputed its analysis and its recommendations for Pentagon reform.”

It’s no secret that Gimble is angling for the job of IG and Levin is the “gatekeeper” that can grant him his wishes.

Again, I stand on this inside info I posted here.

“I have spoken with people who were personally involved in briefing Senator Levin and there was nothing known that he didn‚Äôt know at the time. He only changed his tune after a certain plan was unveiled which has more to do with Levin‚Äôs agenda than anything else. He is a disingenuous liar and a disgrace to the Nation.”

Perhaps it’s time that Levin answered a few questions.