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Without warning last Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D.-Nev., invoked a little-used provision of Article I, Section 5 of our Constitution to force "the world's greatest deliberative body" into an unusual closed session. For a moment I thought he was doing a commercial for my new bestselling novel, "The Assassins" -- which has a similar scene in chapter 5.

As it turns out, this cynical maneuver was far more crass than a mere commercial endorsement. Though Mr. Reid and his colleagues say their goal is to force disclosure of the "misinformation and disinformation" presented by President Bush and his administration during the lead-up to war in Iraq, their real motive seems to be nothing less than bringing down the commander-in-chief in the midst of a war. And unfortunately, the Republican leadership, caught flatfooted like deer in your headlights, failed to do their duty.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R.-Kan., called the maneuver a "political stunt" - and then went on to agree that a six-Senator bi-partisan task force will report by Nov. 14 on progress reviewing "pre-war intelligence." In other words -- now that the president's polls are down and we have more than 2,000 dead, let's explore once again if we're engaged in a war we didn't have to fight.

For the Iraqi people who just affirmed their own constitution -- and who are about to go to the polls to select the first freely-elected legislature in the Islamic world -- this is at best, disheartening. For the Jihadists, intent on driving all western influence out of "Islamic lands" -- it is a propaganda windfall for recruiting more suicide-terrorist "martyrs." Worse yet, for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen and Marines serving on the front-lines in the war on terror -- and their families here at home - it was a painful and pitiful performance all around.

The staged "closed session" came just four days after Vice President Dick Cheney's former Chief of Staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was indicted for perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements in the investigation into the leak of CIA employee Valerie Plame-Wilson's identity. Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Mr. Reid tried to make a connection between the Plame-Wilson leak and the ongoing war to liberate Iraq: "The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about: How the administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions."

On cue, Senate Minority Whip Richard "Dick" Durbin, D.-Ill., -- who once likened American servicemen to those who served Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin and Cambodia's Pol Pot -- added, "We have lost over 2,000 of our best and bravest. Over 15,000 have been seriously wounded. We are spending more than $6 billion a month with no end in sight. And this Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee refuses to even ask the hard questions about the misinformation and disinformation given to the American people and the efforts made by the members of this administration to cover it up."

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