After resisting the idea for weeks, Mr. Bush announced the panel's creation in response to bipartisan calls for an inquiry into intelligence reports before the war that said that illicit weapons existed in Iraq.
The Greens senator Scott Ludlam has called for a parliamentary inquiry into "intelligence overreach".
The Greens have called for a parliamentary inquiry into intelligence overreach after revelations that Australian intelligence attempted in 2009 to listen in to the mobile phone of the Indonesian president, his wife and their inner circle; and revelations this week that Australian intelligence offered to share meta-data about ordinary citizens with foreign intelligence partners in 2008.
That sets up a possible clash with the proposal by the White House last week for a commission that would stay away from an inquiry about intelligence failings.
After resisting the idea for weeks, Mr. Bush created the commission on Feb. 6 in response to bipartisan calls for an inquiry into the intelligence community's performance on issues related to weapons proliferation -- including the assessments that Iraq possessed illicit weapons before the American invasion in March 2003.
In a new clash between Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency, the Senate Intelligence Committee has demanded that the C.I.A. turn over by noon on Friday all of the documents and interviews still being sought by the panel for its inquiry into prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Graham cochaired the congressional inquiry into intelligence activities before and after the attacks.
David A. Kay, the former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, called on Wednesday for an independent inquiry into prewar intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, but he said he did not believe that the Bush administration had pressured intelligence analysts to exaggerate the threat.
In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair has done the same, and today rebutted criticism from lawmakers who were pressing for an independent inquiry into British intelligence on Iraq.
The connections undermine claims that the bombers were "clean skins" - recruits with no previous links to terrorism - and will lead to renewed calls for an official inquiry into apparent intelligence failures.
Yet a famed Senate investigative committee of the 1970s, the so-called Church Committee, on which my old friend and boss Senator Gary Hart served before becoming a founding member of the oversight committee Feinstein now chairs, offers a model for wide-ranging inquiry into potential intelligence abuses, as well as some cautionaries.
