WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 (UPI) -- The appointment of some of the administration's most aggressive critics to key U.S. House subcommittee chairs could signal tough times for the Bush Cabinet.
As House Democrats finalized their subcommittee assignments this week, some of the new appointments could forebode trouble for the administration, especially its policy in Iraq.
In the House, Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., a tenacious former prosecutor, has been named chairman of the Human Rights, International Organizations and Oversight Subcommittee of the foreign affairs panel, with a mandate to ask hard questions about the use of private military contractors in Iraq.
And freshman Rep. Chris Carney, D-Penn., a former intelligence analyst who says pre-war warnings about an insurgency in Iraq were ignored, will head the Subcommittee on Management, Investigations, and Oversight of the House Homeland Security Committee.
The transportation and infrastructure subcommittee of that panel will be headed by veteran firebrand Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas -- and if her performance last year on the committee is anything to go by, officials who displease her can expect to feel the sharp edge of her tongue.
Less public tongue lashings are likely to be doled out by the new House Intelligence Oversight Panel -- headed by Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J. The panel, an offshoot of the Appropriations Committee, brings together authorizers and appropriators to scrutinize the secret budgets of U.S. intelligence agencies.
