Republicans got all outraged, and some wanted her to resign her position as Speaker of the House. The CIA was backed up by Peter Goss, who said he had been briefed in his position as Chair of the Intelligence Committee at the same time as Pelosi, who was then the ranking minority member. Goss later was appointed to head the CIA by Bush, but he didn't last long because, even by bush-league standards, he was an inept choice.
They also made much of the fact that current Director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, put out a statement backing the CIA, and he's a friend of Pelosi. So who's telling the truth??
Look carefully at Panetta's carefully chosen words:
Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing "the enhanced techniques that had been employed." Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened.He is not vouching for the accuracy of the records, only that the records say she was briefed. And, of course, it's not the policy or practice to mislead Congress. That does not prove that they always follow the policy. And the CIA often operates in what Cheney calls "the dark side," so I'd back Pelosi.
Or, as most of these things go, it's probably somewhere in between. They probably said some ambiguous words that could be taken either way.
But LET THIS BE CLEAR: The issue is not whether Pelosi was briefed and whether she should have done something to stop torture back in 2002. The issue is that we did torture, illegally and immorally and to the detriment of our country. And, as is becoming accepted as fact, some of it was done for the sole purpose of getting "evidence" (whether true or not) that the Bush administration could use to sell its war on Iraq. That should be an indictable offense.
Ralph
A fourth Democratic Congressman has now pointed to errors in the CIA records about briefings.
ReplyDeleteBesides Pelosi's questioning of the content, Representative David Obey has joined Senators Bob Graham and Jay Rockefeller in pointing out errors about staff members being, or not being, present during briefings.
For example, Graham has used the fact that staff members are listed as attending the briefing where waterboarding was supposedly discussed to suggest that it was not discussed -- because staff members are not allowed when such sensitive matters are discussed.
Now Obey says that one of his staff was listed as present at a different briefing, when in fact the staff members was turned away from the meeting because of the secret nature of the content.
These errors certainly put into question the veracity of other CIA records.
Why does it matter? Only because Republicans are saying that we have no right to make a case against the bush administration, because Democrat leaders were told and did not object at the time. They're trying to share the guilt, and we're trying to avoid it.
So, I think it's time to drop that line of outrage and get on with the facts we know: torture was used.
Clarification of my point above: Sen. Graham did not use the error about staff members attending the briefing to "suggest" that it was not discussed.
ReplyDeleteHe used the error to bolster his own memory that waterboarding was NOT discussed. He was clear in his mind about it; but he used this as additional evidence to try to convince others.
And now comes the news further undermining the pretense that the CIA would never mislead Congress.
ReplyDeleteAt the instigation of the Republican ranking minority leader of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, they are looking into a prior instance of the CIA withholding information from Congress as documented in the CIA's own inspector general's report.
So -- the hypocrisy continues. It's ok when Repubs question the CIA's veracity, but not when it's the Democrat Speaker.