Waxman to Rice: Step BackHere’s the latest volley in the ongoing battle between Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Waxman, the chairman of the House committee on oversight, wrote to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice today to complain that State Department officials had attempted to prevent a nuclear weapons anaylst at the department from speaking with his staff. This comes after Waxman’s committee issued a subpoena last week for Rice’s testimony on how she dealt with claims before the war that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. Rice has said that she won’t comply with the subpoena.
Waxman said that when his staff sought to meet with Simon Dodge, a nuclear weapons analyst at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, a State Department official called and objected. According to Waxman, the official “informed Committee staff that you [Rice] were prohibiting Mr. Dodge from meeting with Committee investigators. This official claimed that allowing Mr. Dodge to speak with Committee staff would be ‘inappropriate’ because the Committee voted to issue a subpoena to compel your attendance at a hearing on your knowledge of the fabricated evidence.”
Waxman wants to speak to Dodge because he raised alarms about the Niger evidence two weeks before President Bush cited it in his State of the Union address in 2003.
Waxman said he was giving Rice the benefit of the doubt:
I assume that your legislative staff was acting without your authorization in this matter. It would be a matter of great concern - as well as an obvious conflict of interest - if vou had directed your staff to impede a congressional investigation into matter that may implicate your conduct as National Security Advisor.
Waxman informed Rice that the committee would be interviewing Dodge next week.
And he also requested several documents from Rice “relating to the claim that Iraq sought uranium from Africa.”