Pelosi is splitting hairs. She at least knew waterboarding MIGHT be used - and since the US has previously executed Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American prisoners of war someone in Congress should have told the CIA not to do this. Let's also not forget Abu Ghraib - the encouragement of prisoner abuse came straight from Cheney and Rumsfeld's offices and anyone paying attention should have by that time known what the Bush administration was up to. She waited several years to become indignant about waterboarding. Just as was the case with the Iraq war, the Democrats at the time had no spine to stand up to Bush for the fear of being called weak. This is why no one wants to prosecute these crimes - Bush was smart enough to include the Democrats into what he was doing, thus making them accomplices who are now reluctant to let the chips fall where they may. The problem for Obama is that refusing to prosecute war crimes is criminal in itself - so I suspect eventually he will have to allow a proper criminal investigation by the Justice Department.
Pelosi's Tortured Denials
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
Maddow: Techniques in the abstract, as if they were not being used?
Pelosi: We were never told they were being used.
Maddow: You were told they weren't being used?
Pelosi: Well, they just talked about them, but — the inference to be drawn from what they told us was that these are things that we think could be legal. And we have a difference of opinion on that. But they never told us that they were being be used, because that would be a different story altogether. ... And they know that I cannot speak specifically to the classified briefing of that kind. But I can say flat out, they never told us that these enhancement interrogations were being used.
In an April 23 news conference, Pelosi made an even stronger claim, saying that "we" were not told of the use of waterboarding at the September 2002 briefing "or any other briefing":
Pelosi (April 23): At that or any other briefing, and that was the only briefing that I was briefed on in that regard, we were not — I repeat, we were not — told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used.
What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel — the Office of Legislative Counsel opinions that they could be used, but not that they would. And they further — further, the point was that if and when they would be used, they would brief Congress at that time. ... My experience was they did not tell us they were using that. Flat out. And any — any contention to the contrary is simply not true.
Up to this point Pelosi had been adamant that the CIA never informed her that the "techniques" had actually been used on any prisoners. Her April statement broadened the claim even further by stating that "we" (which we take to mean herself and other Democrats) were not told at any briefing that these techniques were being used.
Pelosi Backpedals
Then came the memo, released on May 6, with a first line that appears to drive a stake through the heart of Pelosi's account of that Sept. 2002 briefing:
CIA Memo: Briefing on EITs [Enhanced Interrogation Techniques] on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed.
After that, the backpedaling began. Pelosi said at a news conference on May 14:
Pelosi (May 14): The CIA briefed me only once on enhanced interrogation techniques in September 2002 in my capacity as ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. I was informed then that the Department of Justice opinions had concluded that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques were legal. The only mention of waterboarding at that briefing was that it was not being employed. Those conducting the briefing promised to inform the appropriate members of Congress if that technique were to be used in the future...Five months later, in February 2003, a member of my staff informed me that the Republican chairman and the Democratic ranking member of the Intelligence Committee had been briefed about the use of certain techniques which had been the subject of earlier legal opinions.
By her own account, by February 2003, Pelosi knew what the CIA was doing, regardless of whether or not she heard it directly from the CIA. And she knew at the very least that the CIA had informed the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee and Democratic Rep. Jane Harman of California, who by that time had replaced Pelosi as the ranking minority member on the committee.
But Pelosi has never wavered from her assertion that at her Sept. 2002 briefing, the CIA presented its interrogation program as a theoretical possibility and not as a fait accompli. That omission, Pelosi said, amounts to deliberately misleading members of Congress.
They Said
The CIA has a different account. On May 6, the agency released a 10-page listing of all its briefings to members of Congress on "enhanced interrogation techniques." First on that list is a Sept. 4, 2002, briefing to Pelosi and Republican Rep. Porter Goss of Florida, who was then chair of the House Intelligence Committee. (Pelosi would soon give up her position as ranking minority member on the committee to take over as House minority leader; Goss would later be appointed head of the CIA.)
Discuss