The Senate's Democratic leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

unexpectedly pulled the Senate into secret session Tuesday afternoon in order to have closed discussion of Iraq intelligence.

The maneuver immediately shuttered the doors of the Senate and cleared the Senate press galleries. It has been invoked just 53 previous times in the history of the body.

The Senate can vote to end closed session by a simple majority.
"This past weekend, we witnessed the indictment of the I. Lewis Libby, the Vice President’s Chief of Staff and a senior Advisor to President Bush. Libby is the first sitting White House staffer to be indicted in 135 years."...
"We demand that the Intelligence Committee and other committees in this body with jurisdiction over these matters carry out a full and complete investigation immediately as called for by Democrats in the committee’s annual intelligence authorization report. Our troops and the American people have sacrificed too much. It is time this Republican-controlled Congress put the interests of the American people ahead of their own political interests."

Read the whole transcript.