WASHINGTON, Nov 6: Republicans on Wednesday accused Democrats of trying to use a US congressional probe of pre-war intelligence on Iraq to wage a political attack against President George Bush.

The basis for their accusation was a Democratic staff memo that suggested Democrats seek an independent inquiry when cooperation with the majority Republicans was exhausted, preferably next year.

“The (Democratic) memo completely shreds Democrats’ claims of bipartisanship in this investigation and falsely attributes ugly motives to the president, members of his administration and fellow members of Congress,” declared Sen Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican.

In often fiery exchanges with Democrats in the Senate, Republicans called for an investigation and said staff responsible for the memo should be fired.

Democrats shot back that Republicans had mischaracterized the “unofficial” memo that they said no lawmaker had approved.

They also said Congress should be more concerned about the failure of the Senate Intelligence Committee to conduct a thorough investigation into the intelligence leading up to the US invasion of Iraq.

“This body should be disturbed that ... months after we started asking questions, we are still going, in essence, hat in hand to the administration to try to get the documents we need,” said Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia, top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.

The memo was drafted by the committee’s Democratic staff and first reported by Fox News on Tuesday.

Critics have suggested Bush may have exaggerated the threat from Iraq’s suspected weapons of mass destruction to build support for war.

Republicans want to keep the committee probe focused on the accuracy of assessments by US intelligence agencies. Democrats want to broaden the inquiry to include how the Republican White House used the information.

According to the memo obtained by Fox, the Democratic staff wrote, in part: “We have an important role to play in revealing the misleading — if not flagrantly dishonest methods and motives — of the senior administration officials who made the case for a unilateral, pre-emptive war.”

“We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation at any time — but we can only do so once. The best time to do so will probably be next year,” the memo said.

Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, denounced the memo and asked Democrats to do the same.

Mr Roberts said Democrats and Republicans should work together “to complete the business of the committee” with their investigation.

Mr Roberts and Mr Rockefeller last week wrote the White House, CIA, Pentagon and State Department demanding that documents be delivered and interviews with officials be scheduled by a noon deadline last Friday.

Roberts has said that the White House had promised cooperation, but Mr Rockefeller said on Wednesday they were still awaiting documents.

Mr Kyl said the Senate should examine if its own rules were violated, noting “committee staff should never be involved in partisan political scheming”.

Mr Rockefeller said the Senate should examine the matter since it raises a number of questions, such as who decided to leak the memo and if the panel’s “majority is obtaining unauthorized access to private internal materials of the minority”.—Reuters