On September 9, 2002, Durbin was the first of four Democratic senators (the others being Bob Graham, Feinstein, and Levin) on the Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), responding to the Bush administration's request for a joint resolution authorizing a preemptive war on Iraq without having prepared a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), to ask Central Intelligence Director George Tenet to prepare an NIE on the status of Iraq's Weapon of mass destruction programs. Durbin was also one of few senators who read the resulting October 1, 2002, NIE, "Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction".