A BIPARTISAN PANEL?

Argues that the bipartisan panel named by U.S. president George W. Bush to study intelligence prior to the Iraq war may not be sufficiently even-handed, as a number of the nine members have ties to the Bush administration. Claim that panel co-chair Laurence Silberman is a friend of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney; Claim that panel member Henry Rowen worked under Cheney at the Pentagon; Claim that panel member William Studeman contributed to the Bush campaign in 2000; Claim that panel member Charles Vest, president of MIT, has been accused by a colleague of being slow to investigate allegations of fraud at a lab that does work for the Pentagon.