Another difficulty for Brennan with Congress is the opposition the panel's chairwoman, Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein, has voiced concerning spying on the US's ostensible partner in Berlin.
The sharpest split is between the ruling minority Alawite sect, a Shiite Muslim offshoot from which Mr. Assad's most senior political and military associates are drawn, and the country's Sunni Muslim majority, mostly aligned with the opposition, the panel noted.
"There is clear and convincing evidence that most of the acts of violence committed during the war, including the targeting of civilians... have been directed by or undertaken with the knowledge of senior individuals at the highest levels of the government and within the opposition," the panel wrote.
The opposition on the panel portrayed that attitude as disingenuous, saying that Universal's real aim was to wrest as much control over the marketplace as possible.
He was negotiating with administration officials and other Congressional leaders to resolve the debate over the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, but he signaled his opposition to the panel's plan in a recent speech.
The continued support for the engine, made by General Electric and Rolls-Royce, is likely despite opposition from the panel's new chairman, Representative Norm Dicks, Democrat of Washington, who said he was concerned about the veto threat.
But the mayor's new promotion requirements, intended to end a practice known as social promotion in which students move from grade to grade without mastering basic skills, has met stiff opposition from several panel members, including some of his own appointees.
Military figures have voiced opposition to the panel, saying it is a way to circumvent the amnesty law.
But Birgeneau brokered a deal to add several distinguished male scientists to the committee, defusing the opposition, and the panel first met in February 1995.
Weprin then introduced a panel in opposition, which offered several alternative Garden sites, among them a postal facility in Chelsea and somewhere near the Javits Center.
On Monday on a special one-person Q&A panel the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, promised greater transparency for the offshore asylum seeker detention centres including allowing journalists onto Manus Island and Nauru.
