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Plamegate Gets Hotter: Harry Reid Invokes Rule 21

November 1, 2005

After the 2004 presidential election, there was a bit of hand-wringing over the election of Harry Reid (D-Nevada) as Senate Minority Leader. Some felt that John Kerry should have run for the position as the de facto head of the just-defeated Democratic party. But the soft-spoken Harry Reid was in line for the post and he wanted it. And he got it. Many of the party rank and file didn't understand why Senate Democrats chose the quieter Reid to replace Tom Daschle, instead of choosing a debate champ like John Kerry. Well, it has just become clear why Reid ascended to the job: he knows the procedural rules of the Senate better than anyone except for Ted Kennedy.

Today, Reid invoked a little-known barnburner of a Senate procedure known as "Rule 21."

The Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, caught Republicans by surprise when, with only minutes' warning, he invoked Rule 21 - a move that Republicans said had not been taken in more than 20 years.

After the session, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, emerged to announce that he and Mr. Reid would each appoint three senators to investigate the Senate Intelligence Committee's schedule for completing its investigation. The panel is to report back by Nov. 14. It was not immediately clear what use would be made of the report.

Senator Reid said that while the Republican chairman of the intelligence committee, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, had promised a thorough inquiry into prewar intelligence, including the way the White House had used or misused it, he had not followed through.

"I demand on behalf of the American people that we understand why these investigations aren't being conducted," Senator Reid said from the Senate floor before the session, "and in accordance with Rule 21, I now move that the Senate go into closed session."

Reid forced the Senate into a Secret Session when invoked the rule. It's non-negotiable -- Republicans couldn't stop it or delay it. The lights were dimmed, public was kicked out of the galleries, the doors were shut and the contentious secret session began. Reid took the action to force Senate Republicans to quit stalling and convene congressional hearings to determine if the intelligence on which the Iraq War was based was false, and whether the American public was lied to about the basis of the war, specifically, whether Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellowcake (unenriched uranium) from Niger for use in making a nuclear weapon. As the Plamegate investigation is slowly revealing, Saddam Hussein did not attempt to buy nor did he buy yellowcake from Niger. And when Ambassador Joe Wilson reported that fact and refused to lie about it, Scooter Libby launched a vendetta against Wilson which culminated in outing Wilson's wife as a covert agent for the CIA.

Reid's maneuver was successful. The Republicans had to promise to deliver a plan for the hearings by November 14, 2005. Senator Frist has been on television all day whining and wringing his hands (in that odd way that he does), complaining that it isn't fair, that it's a "slap in the face" to the Republican leadership.

What it really is: a wakeup call. Harry Reid may be soft-spoken, but he's no chickenhawk. He knows how to fight and he's not going to allow any more delays. There are now 2,000 American men and women who are dead because of faulty intelligence. We went to war based on that intelligence, which has been proved to be completely untrue. A full and thorough investigation needs to happen immediately.

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