WASHINGTON, 7 February 2004 — President George W. Bush named seven people yesterday to sit on an independent study commission to look into intelligence failures on Iraqi weapons, choosing former Democratic Sen. Charles S. Robb and retired judge Laurence Silberman, a Republican, to head the panel.
Robb is a former Marine, US senator, governor of Virginia and son-in-law of the late President Lyndon Johnson. Silberman is a conservative who served as deputy attorney general in the Nixon and Ford administrations. Bush directed federal agencies to cooperate with the commission, which will report to the nation by March 2005. Bush said he has yet to select the remaining two members of the nine-member panel.
Bush also picked Sen. John McCain; Lloyd Cutler, former White House counsel to Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; former federal Judge Patricia M. Wald; Yale University President Richard C. Levin, and Adm. William O. Studeman, former deputy director of the CIA.
