The co-chairmen's "attitude on subpoenas is they don't feel they'll need 'em," said McQuillan. "It's the executive branch investigating the executive branch?. They believe that the mandate that they were given by the President of the United States is powerful enough to get all members of the executive branch to comply."
The decision runs contrary to the previously-stated wishes of at least one key member of the panel: Arizona Republican Senator John McCain has previously advocated strongly for the intelligence inquiry to be given the same subpoena power as the 9/11 commission. "I think it needs subpoena power," McCain said in early March during an appearance on ABC. "It gives a certain credibility to a commission... So I'd like to see the subpoena power and perhaps a little broader charter, but I think we're going to work on that."
McCain had indicated that he planned to "engage in negotiations, discussions with Judge Silverman and Senator Chuck Robb and I am hopeful and somewhat optimistic that this could be worked out." The Senator from Arizona was traveling Monday to attend the funeral of slain Army Ranger and former NFL star Pat Tillman, and could not be reached for comment.
President Bush named the intelligence panel on February 6 amid a political firestorm touched off by David Kay, the CIA's chief WMD hunter in Iraq. Kay reported that he'd found little evidence that Saddam Hussein maintained a stockpile or active production of weapons of mass destruction, and that "We were all wrong, probably," about the pre-war estimates of Iraq's capability. The President set March 31, 2005, as the reporting deadline of the Robb-Silberman panel — five months after the U.S. presidential election — and broadened its focus away from the Iraq controversy by ordering the probe to include intelligence on WMD in general, including now-defunct programs in Libya and Afghanistan.
The 9/11 commission has largely relied on document requests for its probe, but did issue three subpoenas after deciding that the Pentagon, Federal Aviation Administration and New York City government had dragged their feet or failed to produce all relevant documents in response to requests.
McQuillan said the subpoena issue had been discussed at the panel's initial, administrative meeting on March 31, but that he did not know whether McCain supported the decision by Robb and Silberman. The commission plans to meet for two days late in May.
McQuillan said the panel, formally called the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, starts with a budget of $4 million and plans to operate with a 65- or 70-member staff similar to that of the 9/11 commission. He said the panel had issued "a lot of requests" for documents to various agencies, but would not give any details. He would not say whether the panel's probe would extend beyond the intelligence community to the role played by the National Security Council, which played a crucial role in advising President Bush over intelligence on Iraq.