KERREY: The president has much more access to intelligence than
members of Congress does [sic]. Ask any member of Congress. Ask a
Republican member of Congress, do you get the same access to
intelligence that the president does? Look at these aluminum tube
stories that came out the president delivered to the Congress --
"We believe these would be used for centrifuges." -- didn't deliver
to Congress the full range of objections from the Department of
Energy experts, nuclear weapons experts, that said it's unlikely they
were for centrifuges, more likely that they were for rockets, which
was for a pre-existing use. The president has much more access to
intelligence than any member of Congress.
Indeed, the White House's involvement in development of the aluminum
tubes
allegation provides an example of how the administration's access to
intelligence on Iraq differed from that of Congress. In particular, the
aluminum tubes story exhibits the "very close" relationship -- which
Rockefeller noted -- between the White House and those "working on
intelligence."