Nancy Pelosi claims the CIA lied to her. The truth is: Nancy Pelosi was derelict in her duty.
FrumForum.com has viewed detailed documents showing Congressional briefings that completely support the CIA’s position that members of Congress knew about and were briefed continuously on the enhanced interrogation methods. Pelosi, however, attended one briefing session out of approximately forty over a seven year period. Perhaps if she attended more than one session she might have had a better grasp of the situation.
FrumForum.com has spoken to former high CIA officials. All emphatically stated that the Congressional leadership was informed about the interrogations. So why is Pelosi denying this truth now? California Republican Congressman Bilbray expressed the view shared by our off-the-record sources “Selective amnesia strikes really quick on this thing. After 9/11 and now that these attacks have been avoided, they can redefine what they knew and did not know. Many politicians know more than they are willing to admit and are trying to have a witch hunt against the CIA officials.”
As a former CIA official noted, “She should be ashamed of herself. She was caught in a lie and now she is blaming someone else. One of the crosses that the CIA bears is that people can accuse it of outrageous conduct and a large number of folks believe them.”
There are outspoken critics of the CIA in Congress, including Speaker of the House Pelosi (D-CA), Senator Rockefeller (D-WV), and Senator Leahy (D-VT) who wants to establish a “Truth Commission”. The Truth Commission might be a good idea if Pelosi is the first to go under oath and testify to what she knows about the interrogation techniques.
CIA critics demand proof of some spectacular life-saving rescue to legitimate the enhanced interrogation techniques. Intelligence does not work that way. One former CIA official pointed out that much of the actionable intelligence obtained from enhanced interrogation or by other methods is “not headline making stuff. It is considered successful if the terrorists are disrupted early in their activities.” Another noted that, “it is an intelligence failure if we let it get that close to taking place.”
Nor can the CIA fully defend itself. Much of the most valuable intelligence gained remains classified. As a former CIA official noted, “I think the information gained during the course of interrogating Al Qaeda prisoners should remain classified because much of that information is still actionable and the CIA still needs to use it in their counter terrorism operations.”
So what is the end result? FrumForum.com was told that those at the CIA feel their reputation is at stake. They feel that they are in a no win situation. A former CIA official told FrumForum.com with sadness and frustration in his voice that “it has got to be rough for people inside the agency right now. This uncertainty of not knowing what is going to happen has got to be difficult in dealing with on a daily basis… People there (the CIA) are generally worried because the President has come out on both sides of the issue.”
The CIA officials interviewed point out that former Attorney General Mukasey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mullen and the current Director of National Intelligence Blair all saw the intelligence reports and support the CIA’s position that the enhanced techniques thwarted many possible attacks. All the recent CIA directors, including Panetta, echoed that sentiment when they asked Obama not to release the memos. One former CIA official summed up their feelings by stating that, “America would be better off if the focus and energy of our leaders were spent on pursuing the terrorists rather than releasing memos giving a one-sided point of view that questions the integrity of the intelligence community.”
84 responses so far
1 barker13 // May 15, 2009 at 5:58 am
“NewMajority.com has viewed detailed documents showing Congressional briefings that completely support the CIAs position that members of Congress knew about and were briefed continuously on the enhanced interrogation methods.”
OK. (*SHRUG*) I’m not doubting, you, Elise. but are we talking “secret” documents? Did whomever showed you the documents break the law by doing so?
Hey… don’t get me wrong… it’s clear Pelosi is a liar – clear to me, at least – but I’m looking for the context to your “reporting” here.
“NewMajority.com has spoken to former high CIA officials. All emphatically stated that the Congressional leadership was informed about the interrogations.”
And when should we expect these individuals to go on the record?
“Many politicians know more than they are willing to admit and are trying to have a witch hunt against the CIA officials.
No doubt. So… when can the public expect to hear sworn testimony?
BILL
2 ottovbvs // May 15, 2009 at 6:34 am
Given the CIA’s record for probity not to mention that of the Bush administration I don’t struggle with the fact that they shaded the facts a bit when they briefed congress or that they gave somewhat different briefings to the Republicans and the Democrats. The whole way this was handled suggests a desire to obfuscate. All that said it’s a bit of red herring. After all at the end of the day the three or four democrats and Republicans weren’t being consulted about this activity they were being informed. I’m not sure trying to spread the blame around and Cheney appearing on TV every other day is a very useful tactic for the neoconservative right. It just keeps the Bush admin on the front burner and elevates the demands for investigations, truth commissions et al.
As for the information NM has received it’s clearly part of a spin war the CIA conducting using “friendlies.” I’d take it with a pinch of salt. They also seem to be courting trouble it seems to me in that admin and and congress are now firmly in the hands of the Democrats who could make life uncomfortable if this escalates from the minor skirmish it currently is.
3 Jeffryw // May 15, 2009 at 6:38 am
I usually don’t say this sort of thing, but I genuinely think Pelosi has a screw loose. She doesn’t seem “all there.” Painful to think this woman is two heartbeats away from POTUS????
What is WRONG with this country. Lunatics running the asylum now and YOUR money is paying for the show!
4 JJWFromME // May 15, 2009 at 6:44 am
Neoconservative David Frum’s site coming to the defense of the CIA. That’s rich.
Really this whole Pelosi rap is about distracting from the real story, which is the story Colin Powell aid Lawrence Wilkerson tells:
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/05/the_truth_about/
Sure, if Nancy Pelosi was briefed about waterboarding, she should take some heat for that. But as far as the torture story goes, she’s a cynical distraction on the part of some desperate people.
5 sinz54 // May 15, 2009 at 7:00 am
Pelosi has gotten caught in a lie–a BIG lie–and she should step down as House Speaker.
All the while, she was acting under a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy: Pelosi won’t demand that the CIA avoid Enhanced Interrogation Techniques–if the CIA doesn’t tell her to her face that they’re doing it.
She never admitted this till yesterday, and instead she raised the ante by constantly attacking the Bushies for so-called “torture.”
Then in her press conference yesterday, she attacked the CIA for lying–not a great thing to do in the middle of the War on Terror when the CIA is our first line of defense against terrorism.
This ain’t the 1970s, Pelosi, when other liberals like Frank Church gutted the CIA’s human intelligence (HUMINT) capabilities because they found them icky. The last time liberals were in power, they destroyed the CIA and it took 20 years to rebuild it. That’s why the voters kicked Church and his fellow liberals out of office in 1980.
We can’t afford to destroy the CIA to save Pelosi’s reputation or make the liberals look good. Sorry. Not this time.
If it comes down to a choice between destroying the CIA versus destroying Pelosi:
Keep the CIA.
Dump Pelosi.
6 balconesfault // May 15, 2009 at 7:06 am
This article doesn’t talk about other sources. Like this one:
Waterboarding, Rough Interrogation of Abu Zubaida Produced False Leads,
Officials Say
By Peter Finn and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 29, 2009; A01
“We spent millions of dollars chasing false alarms,” one former intelligence official said.
or this:
Report: Abusive tactics used to seek Iraq-al Qaida link
By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.
***********
I fully suspect that Nancy Pelosi is doing some serious fudging to save her own butt. I suspect she held her powder on any serious Bush Admin investigations over the last 2+ years because of fear of her tacit complicity in the evil of torture being made public.
I say let the light shine. As I’ve opined before – torture is too powerful a tool for any government to have the right/ability to use.
And if torture is so important to our security – why is it that per all the testimony recently, we quit using it about 4 years ago?
7 Mike K // May 15, 2009 at 7:19 am
It’s amusing to see the lefties asserting that Pelosigate is just a “red herring” now that the CIA is defending itself with records the Democrats DON’T want leaked. It’s funny how that works. Leaks that endanger national security are OK but those leaks that endanger politicians are reprehensible.
Then we have those darn “neocons” again. It’s always the Joooz fault.
Back in the 70s, the FBI mounted a coup against Nixon using Woodward and Bernstein, a couple of kid reporters. The CIA is perfectly capable of doing the same to some people today. These agencies are defending their own turf, which occasionally coincides with the national interest. Nancy had better have a clean record and her husband’s business records had better be clean as a whistle. The CIA fights dirty, as Bush learned to Scooter Libby’s cost.
8 ottovbvs // May 15, 2009 at 7:21 am
Mike K
wrote 0 minutes ago
“Back in the 70s, the FBI mounted a coup against Nixon using Woodward and Bernstein, a couple of kid reporters.”
……I can see you live in the real world Mike K.
9 rancho // May 15, 2009 at 7:25 am
CIA to Pelosi: Resign or Die
http://www.polmachina.com/?p=215
10 balconesfault // May 15, 2009 at 7:31 am
rancho -
It was a joke, linking to that pile of illogic and strawmen and false assumptions, right? Ah well, generated some hits for someone out there in cyberland, I guess.
11 rancho // May 15, 2009 at 7:38 am
baleconefault –
illogic? strawmen? false assumptions?
rancho
12 barker13 // May 15, 2009 at 7:41 am
Re: Mike K; wrote 18 minutes ago –
“It’s amusing to see the lefties asserting that Pelosigate is just a “red herring” now that the CIA is defending itself with records the Democrats DON’T want leaked. It’s funny how that works.”
Actually, doc, I’d go with “sickening.” Or maybe “deplorable.”
Hmm…. “worthy of contempt?”
“Disgusing… depressing… disillusioning…”
(*SIGH*)
BILL
13 rancho // May 15, 2009 at 7:45 am
baleconefault –
illogic? strawmen? false assumptions?
rancho
14 barker13 // May 15, 2009 at 8:30 am
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/05/gingrich-pelosi.html
Read the report… listen to the interview.
(*SHRUG*)
BILL
15 sinz54 // May 15, 2009 at 8:31 am
I say let’s have a Truth Commission, a bipartisan one that looks into all the issues–whether waterboarding is torture, who knew about it–AND whether it was successful in yielding vital time-critical information that could not have been discovered any other way.
The Bushies will take a hit. But they’re out of office anyway.
A number of current Dem officeholders, like Pelosi, may be destroyed.
Bring it on!
16 krove // May 15, 2009 at 8:35 am
Bob Graham was just on TV. Bob was a member of the intelligence committee. He is renowned for keeping copious notes on everything he does and is a stand up guy.
He said the CIA briefed the committee three weeks after the Pelosi briefing. They did not brief about water boarding even thought they were required to inform the committee of any interrogation techniques being used.
We know that they had used water boarding a month or more earlier and incidental before the legal opinions were written.
Graham also notes the following.
[W]hen asked to respond to Philip Zelikow’s assertion that members of Congress from both parties had been briefed on this program, Graham said that when he asked the CIA when he had been briefed on the program, the CIA gave him the dates of four briefings, two in April 2002 and two in September 2002, when they claimed they had briefed him about the program. But after Graham consulted his own records, he pointed out that on two of those dates, he had not attended any briefing. After Graham pointed this out to the CIA, they conceded their own dates were incorrect….
CIA claimed Graham had been briefed on two days when no briefing occurred, which is not dissimilar from their claims that Jello Jay was briefed on February 4, 2003 when he didn’t attend the briefing in question.
The CIA is just making shit up about these briefings, even to the point of claiming there were briefings when none occurred. Can we set aside, now, the notion that the CIA’s own version of what it told Congress when has any credibility in the least?
The CIA was at the forefront of the made up intelligence on WMD. They lied to Goldwater on the mining in Nicaragua. They have a long history of deceit. So nothing new here.
The bigger questions here are more important. What happened to the 65 deaths in CIA custordy. Where are the 100+ detainees that have simply “dissapeared”
17 Chrisc23 // May 15, 2009 at 8:53 am
1. Who cares
2. Who cares
3. Who cares
President Obama should grow a back bone and drop this issue all together. It was several years ago. The voting public really doesnt care. Move on. The public hates to see our leaders fumble around on these issues.
18 jreb // May 15, 2009 at 9:34 am
Great article, Elise. As Newt Gingrich stated Speaker Pelosis the big loser, because she either comes across as incompetent, or dishonest. Those are the only two defenses..The fact is she either didnt do her job, or she did do her job and shes now afraid to tell the truth.
In response to who cares, we all should care. Dont wait for another 9/11 to show your outrage about how could we allow another 9/11 happen. We are moving back into an era where we castigate the people who are trying to protect us from a preventable terrorist attack (the CIA).
19 rancho // May 15, 2009 at 9:56 am
let’s not forget what torture really is:
http://www.polmachina.com/?p=185
20 sinz54 // May 15, 2009 at 10:00 am
rancho: Would you have supported using those kinds of techniques on Khalid Shekh Mohammed (or Osama bin Laden if we had caught him) too?
I’m just curious where YOU would draw the line in interrogation techniques.
21 kroner // May 15, 2009 at 10:11 am
Obviously Pelosi is covering her own ass here, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s lying. It’s not like CIA doesn’t have an interest here in shaping the story.
Regardless of what the truth is regarding Pelosi, her waffling, and the Republican’s determination to pin her could be the best thing that happened so far in getting and investigation to go forward. After all, what one congress person knew or didn’t knowing about a classified CIA program is a small side show compared to the question of who was responsible for authorized torture, under what circumstances, and whether the law was broken in trying to cover it up.
22 krove // May 15, 2009 at 10:18 am
Here is the central issue in this whole sorry disaster.
From Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who is former chief of staff of the Department of State during the term of Secretary of State Colin Powell.
My investigations have revealed to me–vividly and clearly–that once the Abu Ghraib photographs were made public in the Spring of 2004, the CIA, its contractors, and everyone else involved in administering “the Cheney methods of interrogation”, simply shut down. Nada. Nothing. No torture or harsh techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator. Period. People were too frightened by what might happen to them if they continued.
What I am saying is that no torture or harsh interrogation techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush, 2005-2009. So, if we are to believe the protestations of Dick Cheney, that Obama’s having shut down the “Cheney interrogation methods” will endanger the nation, what are we to say to Dick Cheney for having endangered the nation for the last four years of his vice presidency?
Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002–well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion–its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida.
So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney’s office that their detainee “was compliant” (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP’s office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa’ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, “revealed” such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.
There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just “committed suicide” in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi….)
Full story here.http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/05/the_truth_about/
23 Mike K // May 15, 2009 at 10:27 am
Fantasy from krove. There might be a job in it for you as I hear Pelosi is looking for experts just like you.
“”Back in the 70s, the FBI mounted a coup against Nixon using Woodward and Bernstein, a couple of kid reporters.”
……I can see you live in the real world Mike K. “
The real world as defined by Stratfor.com. It’s just a theory but it hangs together pretty well. I have a lengthy post on my blog about after the Stratfor piece came out.
Look for yourself:
http://abriefhistory.org/?p=638
I am no fan of the CIA. I think Pelosi and they deserve each other. They do know how to fight turf battles and she is a little too ditzy to beat them at it.
24 Kbwest // May 15, 2009 at 10:47 am
Citing Senator Bond: “I think her accusations against our
terror-fighters are irresponsible and, according to the CIA’s record, Speaker Pelosi was briefed on what had been done,” said Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri. “It’s outrageous that a member of Congress would call our
terror-fighters liars.”
Senator Pelosi is a politician and says whatever is necessary to be deemed popular. However, I get the feeling she isn’t popular in her own party or even with President Obama.
(Personally, I think she knows darn well that water boarding was because she has used it on herself to stay looking fresh and alert.)
25 balconesfault // May 15, 2009 at 10:59 am
“It’s outrageous that a member of Congress would call our
terror-fighters liars.”
Man – funny that Kit Bond brings that up now, after pretty much labelling Valerie Plame a liar way back when …
I guess it’s outrageous that a congressman could say that a CIA source lies … except when that congressman believes that the CIA source has lied.
26 kroner // May 15, 2009 at 11:10 am
It’ll be interesting to see how far the torture ship sinks before the GOP leadership realizes that it’s time to cut themselves down from the mast.
27 JJWFromME // May 15, 2009 at 11:11 am
Jane Hamsher brings up some interesting points:
http://firedoglake.com/2009/05/15/advice-to-wingnuts-dont-believe-pelosi-on-cia-lying-buy-a-calendar/
28 Mike K // May 15, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Well, firedoglake is certainly an expert on torture. This is a big loser for the D but keep encouraging Pelosi to fight to the last Democrat. Is there any Bush policy on GWOT that Obama hasn’t adopted yet ? Reality sucks, doesn’t it Barry ?
29 JJWFromME // May 15, 2009 at 12:25 pm
“Well, firedoglake is certainly an expert on torture.”
I’ll give you points for wit.
I certainly don’t think Pelosi’s in the free range panic that Doctor Strangelove Cheney is in.
Come on. She’s in a he said/she said about when she was notified about waterboarding. On the other hand Cheney personally ASKED GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES TO FREAKIN TORTURE PEOPLE so that he could COERCE A CONFESSION JUSTIFYING AN ELECTIVE WAR for political reasons.
I know you want to make this about the Evil Nancy from San Francisco who is just EvilEvilEvil. But pardon me if I sense a bit of manufactured outrage from the presently-demoralized GOP noise machine.
Remember the Pelosi Jet flap?:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/pelosi/jet.asp
I think this is a bit like that.
30 krove // May 15, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Hey the CIA are fine upstanding people. Except, wait. Unless we want to betray one of their active agents for political purposes.
When we want to shut down a war critic anything goes.
31 LJS // May 15, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Certainly we need to get all the truth out on everything. Let it lie where it lies.
I found it interesting it was just revealed that the CIA was wrong/misled about Sen Graham, and only admitted it when presented with absolute information.
32 sugarcat // May 15, 2009 at 12:57 pm
You only had to watch Pelosi saying these things (version 5.0 of her ever-changing story) to see how she has totally lost it! It’s not smart to lie about things that can be verified so easily. National security is not a political football to toss around to take revenge, banana-republic style, on the previous admin. This is not a grade school game, it’s the US national security!
33 Mike K // May 15, 2009 at 1:29 pm
“I know you want to make this about the Evil Nancy from San Francisco who is just EvilEvilEvil. “
No, she is just stupid and the people who made her Speaker are figuring this out. Good luck.
By he way, the Wilkerson story (speaking of hysterics) has been debunked.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/05/contra_wilkerson.asp
The New Republic doesn’t like him either.
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2009/05/15/the-latest-delusions-of-lawrence-wilkerson.aspx
I think it is really helpful to the New Majority to have all you lefty conspiracy theorists in one place busily posting nonsense. One stop shopping, if you like that sort of thing.
34 JJWFromME // May 15, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Let’s do an investigation. Then we can clear *all* of this up ; )
35 JJWFromME // May 15, 2009 at 1:49 pm
“By he way, the Wilkerson story (speaking of hysterics) has been debunked.”
Mike K– I knew before I hit the scroll bar that it was Jamie Kirchick over at the New Republic. That guy takes Neoconservative positions as surely as the sun rises.
Yes there’s a reason why Wilkerson has a grudge against the Neoconservatives, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, and that’s because they cut the State Department out of the loop during the runup to the war, with absolutely disastrous consequences for our troops and the Iraqis. Just ask Robin Raphel:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1022-06.htm
And then there’s the Neocons’ dirty pool during the runup to the war in general:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jul/17/iraq.usa
And the Weekly Standard goes after Wilkerson? Surprise surprise.
I don’t know about the “two months” but is that the best they can do to “debunk” Wilkerson?
36 krove // May 15, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Weekly standard. HA,HA,HA.
New Republic even more HA,HA,HA
Good to have all you Neocon Torture lovers in one place to keep an eye on your twisting in the wind.
37 krove // May 15, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Why are you torture lovers not proud of what your President did for you.
Why not just come out and own the whole bag of nails if you believe it was right.
Day after day more information is coming out that this whole thing was about providing a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam and nothing to at all to do with national security.
If these techniques were so vital for national security why did they stop in 2005. If so then Bush/Cheney made the USA less safe. As Cheney now says the lack of these techniques is now making us less safe.
38 mdsagemello // May 15, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Thnx Elise Cooper
Here I go my two cents…
CIA are Honorable United States of America American Citizens who are doing an amazingly Honorable job of protecting the citizens here on USA soil in their Job description to Serve and Protect having taken an Oath. Keep up the good work. The awesome United States of America North American nation are behind you, Yes I too smell a Cover up. The Truth will prevail. It always has and by Golly it will again. USA is looked at by all other Nations as The Big Brother. So let’s get to the bottom of
she said…
he said…
she did to whom…
he did to whom…
Bickering in Congress has gone on since first President George Washington at the start of USA. The Truth will be written in History on this too…stay tuned…as former President George W Bush said it would. I’m with former President George W Bush watch for the Written Word
on the Truth in History forthcoming. Peace Mdsagemello
39 JJWFromME // May 15, 2009 at 2:14 pm
“Panetta said that “ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened.”"
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/cia-director-fires-back-at-pelosi-2009-05-15.html
Yes. Absolutely. Let’s “evaluate all the evidence.” If Nancy Pelosi was briefed, so be it. Let’s get it out in the open.
40 Mike K // May 15, 2009 at 2:15 pm
“krove
wrote 12 minutes ago
Why are you torture lovers not proud of what your President did for you.”
I disapprove of a lot of what Bush, especially in domestic policy, but the part he got right was national security, especially during the first term. He started to wobble just a bit the last two years and let North Korea make him look foolish. All told, you should be glad you are free and secure enough to carp.
“”People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” –
— George Orwell
You don’t deserve it but you get protected anyway.
41 krove // May 15, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Mike K.
News for you. Bush and Cheney did not keep us safe.
Bush took power 21 Jan If you are not aware the 9th of September is 9 Months later. Bush ignored intelligence and 3000 died. Here are just some of the ways Bush failed us on 9/11
Before they took office, senior Bush administration officials were briefed repeatedly about the al Qaeda threat. Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger told incoming National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, “I believe that the Bush administration will spend more time on terrorism in general, and on al Qaeda specifically, than any other subject.”
Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism chief under both Clinton and Bush, presented the new Bush-Cheney administration with a plan to roll back al Qaeda. He briefed Dr. Rice on the plan. Nothing. In February, 2001, he briefed Vice President Cheney on the plan. Nothing. Time magazine has reported, “Some counterterrorism officials think there is another reason for the Bush administration’s dilatory response. Clarke’s paper, says an official, “‘was a Clinton proposal.’” If true, Bush and Cheney were allowing partisan politics to endanger America.
On May 8, 2001 – three months after being briefed by Clarke – Cheney was instructed to chair a task force on terrorism. It did not meet before the 9-11 attacks.
The FBI asked the Bush-Cheney Justice Department for58 million to beef up its domestic counterrorism capacity by hiring more translators, more field agents and more analysts. The Bush-Cheney Administration told the FBI no.
Congressional Democrats sought to shift 800 million in the Pentagon budget from Star Wars (the Bush-Cheney faith-based missile defense system) into counterterrorism. The Bush-Cheney administration threatened to veto the entire defense budget. Congressional Republicans sided with Bush and Cheney, and blocked the Democrats from transferring the funds.
In July, 2001, an FBI agent in Phoenix reported that Middle Eastern men – possibly al Qaeda – were taking flying lessons. He suggested that al Qaeda operatives might be trying to infiltrate the US civil aviation system. His warning was not acted on.
On August 6, 2001 Pres. Bush received a classified briefing, the President’s Daily Brief. On that day, the headline blared: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind, Bush told the briefer, “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.” Dick Cheney, who has called the President’s Daily Brief “the family jewels,” presumably received the same briefing. Neither Bush nor Cheney acted on it. The “family jewels” were pearls before swine.
42 Mike K // May 15, 2009 at 2:44 pm
krove “Blah, blah, blah, blah”
Keep it up. It probably keeps you out of trouble.
“Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism chief under both Clinton and Bush, presented the new Bush-Cheney administration with a plan to roll back al Qaeda. “
This is especially amusing. I think Madeline Halfbright said it best, “Of course we were concerned about terrorism. We had meetings about it every week.”
Read “Jawbreaker” or “See No Evil.” You might learn something. If you get really ambitious, read “Looming Tower.”
43 krove // May 15, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Mike K.
Yadda,Yadda,Yadda,Yadda,Yadda,
We have had 3 criminal Republican Presidents in living memory.
Regan Iran/Contra
Nixon Watergate
Bush too much to list but includes Torture,
Can you font of all knowledge answer me why are Republicans habitually criminals?
44 Mike K // May 15, 2009 at 4:02 pm
For those still interested:
“[Rep. Dan] Lungren [(R., CA) and the state's former attorney general] then switched gears to a line of questioning aimed at clarifying the Obama Justice Departments definition of torture. In one of the rare times he gave a straight answer, Holder stated at the hearing that in his view waterboarding is torture. Lundgren asked if it was the Justice Departments position that Navy SEALS subjected to waterboarding as part of their training were being tortured.
Holder: No, its not torture in the legal sense because youre not doing it with the intention of harming these people physically or mentally, all were trying to do is train them
Lungren: So its the question of intent?
Holder: Intent is a huge part.
Lungren: So if the intent was to solicit information but not do permanent harm, how is that torture?
Holder: Well, it uh it one has to look at… ah it comes out to question of fact as one is determining the intention of the person who is administering the waterboarding. When the Communist Chinese did it, when the Japanese did it, when they did it in the Spanish Inquisition we knew then that was not a training exercise they were engaging in. They were doing it in a way that was violative of all of the statutes recognizing what torture is. What we are doing to our own troops to equip them to deal with any illegal act that is not torture.”
OK More hairs will be split, I suppose, but the loonies will never change their minds so why bother ?
Obama keeps beclowning himself with military tribunals, etc. Republicans have never been so lucky.
Now, they have to figure out some domestic policies. Obama is taking care of national security for them.
45 krove // May 15, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Mike K.
If you are unable to realise the difference of our own personnel training combatants in anti torture techniques in a controlled environment where they are with friends, where no harm will come to them and they realise the limits.
And situation where an enemy is waterboarded 183 times a month with no idea when it will stop and this waterboarding is combined with other techniques like sleep deprivation, extreme cold, banging up against a wall, bring confined in a coffin.
Then you are even more stupid in the extreme than I thought.
46 sinz54 // May 15, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Leon Panetta, appointed by Obama to head the CIA, has now rejected Pelosi’s charge that she was “misled” by the CIA:
“Our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of [suspected terrorist] Abu Zubaida, describing the ‘enhanced techniques that had been employed,’ ” Panetta said.
http://tinyurl.com/p279pc
47 Mike K // May 15, 2009 at 5:03 pm
“Then you are even more stupid in the extreme than I thought.”
No, I simply disagree with you. To you that makes me stupid but that is the child’s way of responding to disagreement. You cannot accept that there are other opinions that may be worthy of consideration. That makes you immature and probably rather unpleasant to be around for all but slavish sycophants.
Your opinions and the way that they are expressed suggest that you do not have sycophants as you seem rather unimpressive. There is nothing like the anonymous world of the blogs to pump up a weak self image.
Walter Mitty comes to mind.
48 JJWFromME // May 15, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Mike K–
So you’re saying that we should be more sympathetic to the pro-torturers among us? All you are saaaying, is give torture a chance?
49 Mike K // May 15, 2009 at 6:41 pm
I’m saying that fools are posturing on this topic as though there were no threat to the country and wishes were horses, as my mother used to say. There are adults and there are children. Which are you ?
50 kroner // May 15, 2009 at 7:22 pm
sinz54: As krove mentioned, Bob Graham’s notes cast in doubt the accuracy of the CIA’s records on these briefings, which is the only evidence Panetta has to go on. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of credible evidence for either side.
51 JJWFromME // May 15, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Mike K–”There are adults and there are children. Which are you ?”
I think torture can be avoided in all but a minuscule number of cases. The rule of law is not something you can turn on and off like a light switch. The expectation that you can do that is something I associate with children.
Further, I’d point out the evidence that the practice of torture was deployed by the last administration to deal with *political* issues (having to do with getting a post-hoc justification for invading a country) and not *national security* issues:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5325680/Dick-Cheney-suggested-waterboarding-Iraqi-prisoner.html
Pretty damning.
The prohibition against torture is a bedrock part of the Anglo-American legal tradition:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/04/horton-nyu-speech
In the extremely rare case where someone has to torture someone to save lives, I’d suggest that that person needs to commit an act of civil disobedience, and justify their actions to a judge afterward. The act of giving people legal license to torture is not what “adults” do under the tradition of the American legal system.
52 Mike K // May 15, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Well, the Daily Beast is certainly a reliable source. [joke]
The comments section here seems to be lifted intact from the Daily Kos so I will find better uses for my time.
Good luck with the conspiracies.
53 balconesfault // May 16, 2009 at 5:22 am
I think that the new charges that torture was being used to try to do what torture does best – force someone to verbalize “facts” that are very convenient to the torturers – is the ratchet that can’t be undone. The Pelosi charges are sideshow – at the best, it appears that she was briefed following the torture, so while she may have had a responsibility to publicly expose it, she didn’t have a role in approving it.
I have no assurances over who if anyone – the CIA or Panetta or Nancy – is telling the unvarnished truth here. I do know that Americans are not real fond of the Iraq war, the years of dead soldiers bodies flying back to Dover, the trillion or two we’ll drop in that country. If more investigations back up Wilkerson’s charge that the point of some of the torture was to push detainees into butressing the Bush Admin rush to Iraq in 2002-2003, we need a lot more light to be shed on the subject.
54 JJWFromME // May 16, 2009 at 6:42 am
Mike K “Well, the Daily Beast is certainly a reliable source. [joke]… Good luck with the conspiracies.”
Well you can see the Daily Beast contributer interviewed here on MSNBC. You can decide for yourself whether he’s a conspiracy theorist (interview starts at about 6 minutes in):
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/30754007#30754007
Also, more news on this story today, with more corroborating sources:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/30773553#30773553
Not Daily Kos. Teevee news on the Teevee machine. Get used to it.
55 sinz54 // May 16, 2009 at 6:48 am
kroner: Insofar as damaging the CIA’s credibility to save Pelosi is not going to wash with the public when we’re under threat from terrorism, I say let’s keep pushing the issue.
In a time of war, when the CIA is our first line of defense against al-Qaeda, Pelosi has to lose this fight. So be it. Let’s do it!
56 barker13 // May 16, 2009 at 7:31 am
Re: Mike K; 4:02 PM –
Thanks for posting that, doc.
(*NOD*)
It’ll be interesting to see what happens on the Sunday morning talk shows tomorrow.
Pelosi may be in deeper doo-doo than most think.
Obviously she is reviled by the GOP. (*SHRUG*) Thing is… she’s also got to look out for elements within her own Party who partly out of ideological disagreement but mainly just out of pure personal lust for power would love to see her toppled.
Finally… Obama.
The early consensus seemed to be that Obama was content to view Pelosi as ally, separate power, rather than follower, subordinate. Perhaps Obama was simply giving her enough “rope” knowing in the end her personality and hubris would create the circumstances upon which to base a “hanging,” or at least a tug on the rope to bring her to “heel.”
(*SHRUG*)
BILL
57 krove // May 16, 2009 at 7:47 am
Sinz,
The more you push the Pelosi side show the bigger the calls will be for a proper investigation of the Bush/Cheney torture administration so go for it.
If Pelosi or any other Dem has a hand in this then they can go to prison as well. You see we Democrats are all for the rule of law wherever it falls. Not that I think any Dem had a decision making role in this.
Take the Bologovich scandal. Republicans would have defended that creep to the hilt. Democrats 100% just wanted an investigation and prosecution.
58 sinz54 // May 16, 2009 at 9:43 am
barker13: Aw, you ruined her day. Karen (”krove”) had her heart set on seeing Cheney and the Bushie lawyers in jail. All her lefty friends were chattering all over the Internet at the prospect of seeing the Bushies “frog-marched” off to jail.
59 sinz54 // May 16, 2009 at 9:50 am
I think Obama would prefer a less strident, less ideologically rigid House Speaker.
He doesn’t want to give the GOP a target to run against in 2010, as the Democrats ran against Gingrich in the 1990s even after he stepped down as House Speaker.
Now Steny Hoyer doesn’t infuriate the GOP base the way Pelosi does. Steny Hoyer has the same talent as Obama for acting liberal while talking in moderate, soothing tones. And Hoyer is from Maryland, which isn’t as big a target in the culture wars as San Francisco.
So, if this continues a while longer, expect a statement from Pelosi that “I do not want this controversy to distract us from the vital work of [insert long list of liberal wet dreams here]. Therefore, I am resigning the Speakership….”
60 JJWFromME // May 16, 2009 at 10:25 am
sinz54: We want a public accounting of people who requested and got TORTURE, for obviously dubious reasons in some cases.
If Pelosi knew something and did nothing, fine. Let that come out too.
Call us crazy, but we’d like the rule of law here in America. If we lived in Argentina, we’d expect less. But obviously we don’t live in Argentina. Do we?
61 sinz54 // May 16, 2009 at 12:26 pm
JJWfromME: As I understand it, we had the rule of law.
The Bushies wanted to know how far they could push the legal envelope and still remain within the letter of the law. That’s what they asked their lawyers, like John Yoo, to answer.
If the Bushies wanted to just violate the law, they wouldn’t have asked any lawyers for any legal advice. They would have just gone ahead and done whatever they wanted.
Now how far a law can be bent without breaking it is a complex legal question. To sort it out, we have judges and juries. But you can’t a priori declare someone’s legal opinion as now being “illegal,” just because you don’t like it in the context of 2009.
In war, you have to be innovative and outthink the enemy. Bush should get credit, NOT blame, for trying to determine what he could legally get away with. In his shoes, I would have done the same.
Because al-Qaeda, remember, isn’t constrained by any rules, laws, or the Geneva Convention. They fight with every means possible and they fight dirty.
In all this discussion of “rule of law,” let’s never forget what the enemy is capable of–and how THEY fight.
62 JJWFromME // May 16, 2009 at 1:07 pm
“As I understand it, we had the rule of law.”
But the whole point of this story is that there’s so much evidence that we did not. (You can’t read any of my links below without seeing that.)
63 krove // May 16, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Sinz.
There was no need for legal advice. All they needed to do was follow US law and the Geneva convention.
The fact that they pushed the lawyers to offer legal opinions was a CYA move pure and simple.
That they stopped torture and all other EIT’s in 2005 and removed all the legal opinions points to that conclusion. They panicked. Why did they stop if it was such a great nation saving device.
Why did the rescind all the legal advice if it was right?
64 kroner // May 16, 2009 at 2:07 pm
sinz54: “But you can’t a priori declare someone’s legal opinion as now being ‘illegal,’ just because you don’t like it in the context of 2009.”
No one is declaring it a priori. There’s consensus among legal experts that the reasoning in the memos are bunk, not to mention that every independent authority on what constitutes torture has agreed that what the memos authorized is torture. You don’t even need to be an expert to read the statutes on torture and then the memos and realize that there is a serious disconnect. It’s painfully obvious that the reasoning there isn’t a best-intentions interpretation of the law, but a deliberate attempt to stretch the law in order to reach a predetermined outcome (i.e. that the EITs are legal).
But I think we can all agree that we shouldn’t prejudge who committed a crime. No one should be presumed guilty. That’s why there should be an impartial investigation, and the chips will fall where they may. If people like Cheney insist that they haven’t committed a crime, then an investigation should reveal their innocence.
65 krove // May 16, 2009 at 2:53 pm
McClatchy has a new take.http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/68315.html
WASHINGTON Then-Vice President Dick Cheney, defending the invasion of Iraq, asserted in 2004 that detainees interrogated at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp had revealed that Iraq had trained al Qaida operatives in chemical and biological warfare, an assertion that wasn’t true.
Cheney’s 2004 comments to the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News were largely overlooked at the time. However, they appear to substantiate recent reports that interrogators at Guantanamo and other prison camps were ordered to find evidence of alleged cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein despite CIA reports that there were only sporadic, insignificant contacts between the militant Islamic group and the secular Iraqi dictatorship….
The Rocky Mountain News asked Cheney in a Jan. 9, 2004, interview if he stood by his claims that Saddam’s regime had maintained a “relationship” with al Qaida, raising the danger that Iraq might give the group chemical, biological or nuclear weapons to attack the U.S.
“Absolutely. Absolutely,” Cheney replied….
“The (al Qaida-Iraq) links go back,” he said. “We know for example from interrogating detainees in Guantanamo that al Qaida sent individuals to Baghdad to be trained in C.W. and B.W. technology, chemical and biological weapons technology. These are all matters that are there for anybody who wants to look at it.”
No evidence of such training or of any operational links between Iraq and al Qaida has ever been found, according to several official inquiries.
The McClatchy story includes some of their previous reporting on the story about the pressure interrogators received from Rumsfeld and Cheney’s office to keep going back to Zubaydah and KSM for confessions of the alleged ties. To help set context for the story, remember
the allegations made by Paul O’Neill, former Bush administration Treasury Secretary, in Ron Suskind’s 2004 The Price of Loyalty
[W]hat happened at President Bush’s very first National Security Council meeting is one of O’Neill’s most startling revelations.
“From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says ONeill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic “A” 10 days after the inauguration – eight months before Sept. 11.
“From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” says Suskind. “Day one, these things were laid and sealed.”
As treasury secretary, O’Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as “Why Saddam?” and “Why now?” were never asked.
“It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying Go find me a way to do this,” says ONeill. “For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap.”
And that came up at this first meeting, says ONeill, who adds that the discussion of Iraq continued at the next National Security Council meeting two days later.
He got briefing materials under this cover sheet. “There are memos. One of them marked, secret, says, Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,” adds Suskind, who says that they discussed an occupation of Iraq in January and February of 2001.
66 dragonlady // May 16, 2009 at 8:45 pm
The left isn’t interested in rule of law or the truth. Leahy’s call for truth commission are for political persecution, pure and simple. I respect others’ views that we should never torture or use coercive interrogation measures. But the eagerness to burn the former admin, and with it, the CIA during a time of war shows how truly unhinged some have become. The left spreads more vitriol against Bush than it does against UBL.
67 kroner // May 16, 2009 at 9:18 pm
How can “lefties” possibly “persecute” Bush administration officials if they haven’t done anything wrong? Supposing there was no wrong doing, an investigation would reveal that and clear their names.
If prosecutors merely have reason to suspect that a crime has taken place, they are obligated by law to investigate. If that investigation reveals that no crime took place, then the people being investigated go about their business confident that they’re on the correct side of the law. If the investigation reveals that a crime took place, then and only then do prosecutions happen. That’s how the justice system works in this country (or at least how it’s supposed to work), and this case is no exception. There is far more than enough evidence to pass the threshold of warranting an investigation.
The people who would investigate, such as a special prosecutor, are nonpolitical and would have no interest except in finding the truth, whatever it may be. If Bush officials stand by their claims that they did nothing wrong, they should have nothing to fear from an investigation.
68 balconesfault // May 16, 2009 at 10:12 pm
There is only one good reason for investigations – and if it comes to it, prosecutions. That’s to ensure that this is not done again.
During the last adminstration, how many times did you hear cited as a defense “but x did it!” (x being Lincoln, or Roosevelt, or Kennedy, or whoever). If we don’t want government to have a power, there’s only one way to keep them from having that power – and that’s to make sure that it doesn’t become unchallenged precedent.
Now, if for political reasons Obama were to decide that someone who is found guilty should be pardoned, either because of an acceptance of the idea that torture was critically necessary to provide actionable intelligence, or because he believes that political healing would proceed best if certain people didn’t end up in prison – that is in his right as a political official.
But it is not Eric Holders job to handle those questions. If he believes there were laws broken, he should investigate, and follow the legal processes that flow from the investigation. His job is not political.
69 Churl // May 17, 2009 at 12:33 am
kroner asks “How can “lefties” possibly “persecute” Bush administration officials if they haven’t done anything wrong? Supposing there was no wrong doing, an investigation would reveal that and clear their names.”
Short answer: the process is the punishment. Everyone being “investigated” will incur heavy legal fees plus large amounts of time away from normal activities, bad publicity, and lots of stress.
That’s how.
70 sinz54 // May 17, 2009 at 6:39 am
balconesfault sez: “There is only one good reason for investigations – and if it comes to it, prosecutions. That’s to ensure that this is not done again.”
That’s a TERRIBLE reason.
The only reason you want to dig up something to prosecute these folks is because YOU personally are morally offended by what they did.
Well, guess what. I’m NOT offended. I would have done the exact same thing in their circumstances, which was to find out just what the law would permit the U.S. to do in order to keep the country safe.
That’s what this boils down to.
You know, I once asked liberals if they would be satisfied if Osama bin Laden got himself a smart lawyer like Johnnie Cochran and got the case against him thrown out on the grounds of tainted evidence or something. They said yes.
And I said NO.
I said that Osama should never be allowed to walk out of a courtroom a free man. He should be assassinated on the way out.
Does that offend your liberal sensibilities?
Too damn bad.
71 sinz54 // May 17, 2009 at 6:44 am
kroner sez: “It’s painfully obvious that the reasoning there isn’t a best-intentions interpretation of the law, but a deliberate attempt to stretch the law in order to reach a predetermined outcome”
You liberals did that all the time:
“If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit”
Stretching the law is NOT breaking the law.
I would have done the exact same thing in Bush’s place: Find out just how far we can go–but no farther–without violating the law.
Maybe Bush’s lawyers were mistaken, and therefore Bush did go too far. But you can’t prosecute someone for a flaw in their legal opinions. If you could, then thousands of lawyers who ever lost cases in America could be prosecuted.
On this one, Bush was right, and you are wrong.
72 balconesfault // May 17, 2009 at 7:21 am
“On this one, Bush was right, and you are wrong.”
By your logic, any corporation that could get a lawyer to write briefs supporting a self-serving interpretation of tax law, or labor law, or securities law … and be exempt from prosecution.
Which isn’t how the law works.
Particularly when investigations, going forward, are likely to turn up more Philip Zelikows.
73 sinz54 // May 17, 2009 at 8:31 am
balconesfault: That’s not what I said. If a client’s lawyer *knowingly* wrote a legal brief that he knew falsely asserted that an illegal action was legal (giving the client sanction to commit that action), he could certainly be prosecuted. (Examples are the Mafia consiglieres.)
But if the lawyer claims that he was sure he was right at the time he wrote it, and there are no witnesses to prove that the lawyer knew at the time what he was writing was deliberately incorrect, then on what grounds can he be prosecuted?
You are treading on VERY thin ice here. No lawyer would agree to work for a client, if it turned out that he could be prosecuted along with his client for recommending a course of action that later on someone else judged was illegal. That comes close to ex post facto law.
Millions of Americans were infuriated by Johnnie Cochran’s demagoguing and bending of the law to get his client, O.J. Simpson, acquitted. But no one could prove that Cochran violated any laws by his antics. They were, in the opinion of many, unethical. But they weren’t illegal.
74 dragonlady // May 17, 2009 at 10:13 am
What’s truly torture is having to choose between dying in a burning building or leaping to your deaths dozens of stories below. Or being beheaded. Poor a little water on KSM’s head to save American lives, Bush gets compared to Hitler and Stalin. I wonder if those on the Left who want to stop all of the CIA’s “illegal” activities will also want to investigate Bill Clinton’s rendition programs?
75 balconesfault // May 17, 2009 at 10:30 am
Sinz – I am not in disagreement on lawyer liability. For example, there is plentiful evidence that Yoo really didn’t write anything he doesn’t believe. It is up to the legal profession as to whether they choose to have him be a part of it – but I don’t think there should be legal liability just for believing something that is wrong.
However, receiving bad legal advice is no shield from liability for those who acted on that advice. It may be considered a mitigating factor during sentancing, but it is surely not a legitimate defense.
76 kroner // May 17, 2009 at 10:59 am
sinz54: When I said they stretched the law, I mean well past the point of breaking it. Every independent authority agrees that what was allowed by the memos is torture. There was also considerable dissent among other legal experts within the administration. If those in the administration ordering torture were under any illusions that the torture memos were a good appraisal of the law, that should have set off alarm bells. In fact, the voices of dissent were so overwhelming that they managed to get the memos rescinded in 2005, despite the administration’s seeming obsession with using torture. But that doesn’t excuse the years in between.
You should know that getting bad legal advice is not a cover for breaking the law. That’s a bad argument and sets a bad precedent. If that were the case, I could exempt myself from any law I wanted as long as I could find a lawyer who was crazy or unscrupulous enough to sign off on it and then swear by his opinion. Breaking the law is breaking the law, despite what your chosen lawyer says. And giving exceptionally bad legal advice is not a crime, but it is a good reason for being disbarred.
77 kroner // May 17, 2009 at 11:13 am
Churl: ok, I’ll concede time, money and stress. If they go the special prosecutor route, bad publicity seems less likely. Details of an investigation aren’t made public unless there are prosecutions and then only the details relevant to those cases. Of the recent special prosecutor investigations into the WH that I can think of: the Valerie Plame incident and the US attorney firings, they’ve done a good job following that procedure. I haven’t heard any information get out about either except the case that was brought against Scooter Libby.
But back to time, money and stress. You’re right that it’s not ideal. An investigation does come at some cost. But it’s the best and only system we have. And it’s also the law that suspected crimes are investigated.
78 barker13 // May 17, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Anyone catch SNL this weekend?
I don’t regularly watch it, but if I’m still awake and by a TV I try to catch the opening skit.
This weekend I taped it, figuring they’d REALLY go to town on Pelois.
***NADA***
***NOTHING***
***ZILCH***
Yep… DVRed the whole show and not a MENTION of arguably the number one political story of the week.
No… instead… they opened with a skit skewing CHENEY. Bush and Cheney.
(*SNORT*)
I’ll give NBC and SNL credit… I never would have imagined they’d go so far as to totally ignore this one.
(*SHAKING MY HEAD IN DISGUST*)
BILL
79 balconesfault // May 17, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Didn’t catch it – but I’m not sure why the Pelosi thing is a big story. At the very worst, it seems like “politician lied”. News at 11.
Pelosi did not have any authority to approve torture. She did not have any authority to make a deal with the administration regarding torture. If people want to hang Nancy out to dry, have at it – I was very unimpressed by her conduct as Speaker during the last two years of the Bush Administration. But it seems like all you have here is a hypocracy charge – which is muted by Pelosi’s continued call for more investigation. Since such an investigation would certainly shed more light on any role she had in this ugly episode, have at it.
80 dragonlady // May 17, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Kroner, if you want to investigate who broke the law, let’s start with Clinton. According to Richard Clarke, he acknowledged that renditions were a violation of international law, yet he gave the go ahead since these were terrorists. He said of course it was illegalthats the point of covert action. Let’s also investigate Joe Biden for blabbing away one of the locations of the VP’s secret bunkers–an atrocious breach of national security. I read the memos–the one gray area that is debatable to me is waterboarding. The OLC memos allowed it for a max of 40 sec with saline to prevent hyponatremia, and a cloth covering the persons nose and mouth. A dr had to be present. Feel sorry for the terrorists yet? Other techniques (wall standing, hooding, sleep deprivation, etc) were explicitly found not to be torture by the European Commission on Human Rights when N Ireland brought the case against England in the 70s. If you want to make the case we can’t allow it again, then simple–Congress can pass a law banning all the techniques. They only did this when they were sure Bush would veto it. Whats stopping them from passing it now that Obama is in office? Yet over 90 senators passed the Detainee Treatment Act. While it outlaws torture, it specifically exempts the CIA from using only the Army Field Manual techniques–McCain is the one who argued the agency should have more latitude than the military. It also instructs the DoD to consider evidence gained from “undue coercion” in its military commissions. Moreover, when 65 Senators passed the Military Commissions Act, they essentially changed the definition of torture. In the act, “severe physical or mental pain means that “torture must involve a substantial risk of death, extreme physical pain, a burn or physical disfigurement of a serious nature, not to include cuts, abrasions or bruises; or significant loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ or mental faculty.” They also amended the War Crimes Act, specifically narrowing prosecution against those who violated Common Article 3 of Geneva, and made it retroactive, effectively immunizing those in command who implemented coercive interrogation techniques. So shall we also investigate whether these Senators, while outlawing torture, were indifferent to what you may call past abuses of the law? Or are they just indifferent to evidence gleaned from torture? This is not about rule of lawthis is about politics, pure and simple.
81 dragonlady // May 17, 2009 at 6:51 pm
balconesfault wrote: Pelosi did not have any authority to approve torture. She did not have any authority to make a deal with the administration regarding torture.
That is the worst rationalization and cop-out I’ve ever heard. As the Speaker of the House, if she thought laws were being broken, she could have clearly protested to the President, threaten to outlaw the use of these techniques, or worked to deny the CIA funding. Or go public with it. It’s not just about a hypocritical politician lying. It’s about one being tacitly complicit in allowing what she and others deem as “torture” to occur. If waterboarding is such a no-brainer in being torture, what’s her defense since she was briefed this technique was used on Abu Zubyudah? She also irresponsibly accused the CIA of a crime–lying to Congress. So when you say have at it with her, dont worrywe will if they get these commissions off the ground.
82 dragonlady // May 17, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Actually, we should start these truth commissions with Obama himself. The UN torture investigator says Obama is not in compliance with international law if he’s waiving prosecutions for CIA officials who took part in torture.
83 kroner // May 17, 2009 at 8:31 pm
To add to that, he’s also not legally allowed to try to influence who and what his justice department prosecutes, which means he better get his ass out of the way. I’m glad we are in agreement here about preserving the rule of law, dragonlady.
84 barker13 // May 18, 2009 at 7:43 am
Re: Balconesfault; 5:48 PM –
“…I’m not sure why the Pelosi thing is a big story. At the very worst, it seems like “politician lied”. News at 11.”
(*SIGH*)
I rest my case, folks; there’s no hope for the country. There really isn’t. There are just too many of “them” and not enough of “us.” (Franco… Mike K… you guys know what I’m saying.)
Either Balconesfault is deliberately sidestepping my point concerning the degree of media manipulation and how it effects the body politic or else he (she?) is perfectly sincere and believes a Speaker of the House of Representatives going before the American People and lying regarding a matter of this import and indeed advancing the lie upon falsely accusing the CIA…
(*SIGH*)
And no doubt Balconesfault speaks for – at best – a sizable minority of the American People and – at worst – a majority.
“Pelosi did not have any authority to approve torture.”
OK. That answers that. Balconesfault was just being disingenuous in the service of his (her?) partisan agenda.
(*SIGH*)
Balconesfault. Pelosi as a member of the minority could have written and submitted a bill…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEJL2Uuv-oQ
…outlawing each and every SPECIFIC type of “enhanced interrogation” she viewed as “torture.”
And certain, Balconesfault, her powers in this regard were equal to the task.
(*SHRUG*)
Question: With a Democratic President… Democratic Speaker… Democratic Senate Majority Leader… is waterboarding of captured terrorists/spies now… AS A MATTER OF LAW, OF STATUTE, not just of “policy” – against the law…???
(*SNORT*)
BILL
You must log in to post a comment.