Sen. Jay Rockefeller IV

t the outset of the 108th Congress, Sen. Jay Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., took over as ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Scion of the famous oil family, Rockefeller was born in New York City, graduated from Harvard, and served as governor of West Virginia. Since his election to the Senate in 1984, he has been associated mainly with domestic issues such as health care. But Rockefeller has had some experience in homeland security, and he co-wrote post-9/11 aviation security legislation when he served as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee's Aviation Subcommittee.

During the Senate committee's inquiry into prewar intelligence on Iraq, Rockefeller ended up in a firestorm over a controversial leaked memo written by one of his staffers. The memo discussed a committee strategy to seek partisan advantage over the Bush administration's use of intelligence. Rockefeller claimed it was only an "options" memo and not intended for other Democratic members of the committee. Nevertheless, Republicans cried foul and cited the memo as evidence that Rockefeller, if not the Democratic leadership behind him, was politicizing intelligence issues.

Other observers do believe the partisanship on the committee is unprecedented, and they blame Rockefeller for contributing to the atmosphere. Conversely, some people have given Rockefeller credit for asking important questions about the way intelligence is used and disseminated. "We must learn if prewar intelligence was inaccurate, and if so, why. And whether intelligence was misused by policy makers to make the case for going to war," the 66-year-old said in defense of his record. "It is part of our oversight responsibility."

Some watchdog groups have strongly criticized the committee as a whole, arguing that with just two open hearings in 2003, it has been overly secretive and has abdicated its responsibility to the public.