WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Vice President Dick Cheney and his chief of staff withheld documents from a Senate committee looking into intelligence on Iraq, the National Journal reported.
The documents included drafts of portions of a speech Colin Powell, then secretary of state, gave at the United Nations in February 2003, the newspaper said. The portions were written by I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff.
The Senate Intelligence Committee held hearings on the actions of intelligence agencies during the preparation for the 2003 invasion of Iraq but did not investigate questions concerning how the administration used the intelligence to build public support for the war.
The committee also sought information from the president's daily briefing in the period before the invasion. A former senior administration official told the National Journal the decision to withhold the documents was at least partly political.
"Nobody wants something like this dissected or coming out in an election year," the former official said.
The disclosure comes at a time when Libby and President Bush's top political adviser Karl Rove face possible prosecution in connection with the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.
