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ManintheMiddle
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
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 Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 8:16 pm Post subject: ARE ROOSTING CHICKENS CRAPPING ON PELOSI'S HEAD? |
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Poor Nancy Pelosi, the embattled and bewildered Speaker of the House, third in line to the Presidency (a scary thought) and San Francisco liberal, is fighting for her political life--er--the truth.
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Pelosi: CIA misled her on waterboarding
By DAVID ESPO,
WASHINGTON (AP) � House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bluntly accused the CIA on Thursday of misleading her and other lawmakers about its use of waterboarding during the Bush administration, escalating a controversy grown to include both political parties, the spy agency and the White House.
"It is not the policy of this agency to mislead the United States Congress," responded CIA spokesman George Little, although he refused to answer directly when asked whether Pelosi's accusation was accurate.
But the House's top Democrat, speaking at a news conference in the Capitol, was unequivocal about a CIA briefing she received in the fall of 2002.
"We were told that waterboarding was not being used," the speaker said. "That's the only mention, that they were not using it. And we now know that earlier they were." She suggested the CIA release the briefing material.
Pelosi also vehemently disputed Republican charges that she was complicit in the use of waterboarding, and she suggested the GOP was trying to shift the focus of public attention away from the Bush administration's use of techniques that she and President Barack Obama have described as torture.
Coincidentally, Pelosi spoke as the CIA rejected former Vice President Dick Cheney's request to release secret memos judging whether waterboarding and other harsh techniques had succeeded in securing valuable intelligence information.
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said the request was turned down because the documents are the subject of pending litigation, which makes them not subject to declassification.
Pelosi has been the target of a campaign orchestrated in recent days by the House Republican leadership, which is eager to undercut her statements as well as stick Democrats with partial responsibility for the use of waterboarding � a kind of simulated drowning � in the Bush administration.
GOP officials secured the release of an unclassified chart by the CIA that describes a total of 40 briefings for lawmakers over a period of several years. Pelosi's name appears once, as having attended a session on Sept. 4, 2002, when she was the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Former Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., who at the time was the chairman of the committee and later became CIA director, also was present.
The notation says the briefing was on "enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah ... and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed."
Little, responding to Pelosi for the CIA, said the chart "is true to the language in the agency's records." But he did not say whether the information was accurate.
Instead, he pointed to a recent letter from CIA Director Leon Panetta to lawmakers saying it would be up to Congress to determine whether notes made by agency personnel at the time they briefed lawmakers were accurate.
The CIA has said it could allow congressional staff to review the notes made by briefers who spoke with lawmakers.
The chart specifically notes a discussion of waterboarding in 13 briefings between February 2003 and March 2009, most attended by Democrats as well as Republicans. Two Democrats, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, have challenged the accuracy of some of the CIA's chart.
Pelosi's decision to respond to her critics was something of a surprise, since most polls show Obama and his policies are popular, and Republicans have exhibited virtually nonstop political disarray in the six months since last fall's elections.
Pelosi renewed her call for a so-called truth commission to investigate the events in the Bush administration that led to the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques. While President Barack Obama has banned waterboarding, calling it torture, he has been notably cool toward an independent inquiry that might distract attention from his domestic agenda.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also has expressed opposition, as have congressional Republicans.
Pelosi was unusually harsh in describing the CIA.
"They mislead us all the time," she said. Asked whether the agency had lied, Pelosi said yes.
Pelosi contended that Democrats did what they could to stop the use of waterboarding. The senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, who received the 2003 briefing on the practice, sent the CIA a formal letter of protest, she said. That was a reference to Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif.
But Pelosi said her focus at the time was on winning control of Congress from the Republicans so her party could change course.
"No letter could change the policy. It was clear we had to change the leadership in Congress and in the White House. That was my job � the Congress part," Pelosi said.
Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the minority leader, said during the day that Democrats "want to have it both ways" on waterboarding by claiming they did not oppose it even though they criticize it.
Boehner also asked Obama in a recent White House meeting to release the CIA memos that describe the information gained through the use of waterboarding.
Cheney says the documents show that the tactics prevented terrorist attacks and saved lives.
In an embarrassment for the administration, the director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, told employees in a recent memo that interrogations that included waterboarding had secured useful intelligence. He later issued a public statement that said it was not known whether the same information could have been obtained without harsh techniques � the same position Obama has taken. |
So now it's all clear--she was duped by the CIA even though she told the press corps that they supposedly "do this all the time."
Do you believe her? Is she spinning her involvement more than a whirling dervish? Or, perchance, is she being disingenuous in an attempt to cover her considerable ass?
And, more importantly, does this spell the deathknell of the leftwing witchhunt in Congress against the former Bush Administration on the controversial issue of enhanced interrogations?
Inquiring minds want to know. |
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dmbfan
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 8:47 pm Post subject: |
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I honestly don't think that even the most far of leftist can defend her on this one.
dmbfan |
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Chris2007
Joined: 20 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 9:12 pm Post subject: |
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| And what purpose would the CIA have for lying to her? If she is accusing them of that she should at least answer why she thinks so. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 10:52 pm Post subject: |
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| OP, what's your position on torture (sorry, enhanced interrogation techniques). |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 9:23 am Post subject: |
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Stage 1: Saddam Hussein is torturing his people and deserves to be removed.
Stage 2: Who us? We aren't torturing anyone.
Stage 3: We didn't torture anyone but if we had, Nancy is just as guilty as we are because she didn't stop us from doing it.
Stage 4: Torture, which we weren't doing, is OK because it works, just like Saddam Hussein said, but he was evil and we aren't because he was just selfishly protecting his gov't cronies which is different from us protecting our gov't officials who are good, but if they did something they shouldn't have, well Nancy knew about it and didn't stop us. (Or something equally incoherent.)
Once again: This is just the 'But Mommy, he did it tooooo' defense. |
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rollo
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China
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| Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 11:10 am Post subject: |
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| Pelosi is toast. She has been dancing and weaving but the truth seems to be catching up with her. I think she is so tainted with this and the deceptions she should step down as Speaker. She was an effective congressperson but has not been very effective as a speaker. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 11:14 am Post subject: |
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| rollo wrote: |
| Pelosi is toast. She has been dancing and weaving but the truth seems to be catching up with her. I think she is so tainted with this and the deceptions she should step down as Speaker. She was an effective congressperson but has not been very effective as a speaker. |
I agree.
What do you think should happen to Cheney, Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld et al? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 5:50 pm Post subject: Re: ARE ROOSTING CHICKENS CRAPPING ON PELOSI'S HEAD? |
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| ManintheMiddle wrote: |
| Do you believe her? |
No. |
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ManintheMiddle
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 8:34 pm Post subject: |
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mises asked:
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| OP, what's your position on torture |
Evidently you haven't read my numerous posts on this matter. First off, the term "torture" is a highly perjorative one. It conjures up images of medieval dungeons and Nazi interrogations, in other words a historical legacy of human abuse. So I use this term advisedly unlike most of the Left who are quick to apply it wherever and whenever it suits their political agenda.
That said, I also disdain euphemistic descriptions like "enhanced techniques" since the very word enhanced implies "nuanced" and "improved," neither of which accurately describes what this involves. It's like the onerous term "collateral damage." As much as I understand the military subculture, these terms are ineffectual at best and disingenuous at worst when bandied about in the civilian sector (re: public).
Some liberal commentators, in moments of histrionics, have claimed that what we did was no different from the Japanese who waterboarded American POWs. Well, my father had friends who were subjected to it and those sessions involved much more than pouring water on someone's head. Many were deliberately maimed, burned, and even mutilated. Moreover, they were not known or suspected terrorists like the Gitmo group, another point conveniently overlooked on the Left. But then for them any soldier is guilty merely by association.
Waterboarding to me is only "wrong" if more expedient and reliable means can be used against known terrorists. I do not believe that was the case in the wake of 9-11, however. And given that these terrorists had actionable intelligence, the Bush Administration was morally obligated (that's right, a higher moral principle) to protect innocent American lives. Even Pelosis understood that at the time, which is why she is on record in November, 2002 for praising the CIA and its efforts on this front.
Reasonable people who actually know about interrogation techniques firsthand (which doesn't include anyone on this forum) can disagree about the ultimate effectiveness of these methods. But here's my bottom line: I don't give a rat's ass what some socialist in Western Europe thinks about the moral integrity of the U.S. if the technique had even a slim chance of extracting information in an expedient manner (at the time we feared further reprisals within weeks).
And had we refrained from using the method, al-Qaeda would have found us foolish. Certainly they weren't going to suddenly respect us. Nor were we going to convince Western Europeans who were looking for any excuse to malign the Bush Administration. Same goes for the far Left.
This issue is precisely why Joe Lieberman, a Jewish American and a leading Senate Democrat, parted ways with his Party.
And for posters like YaTa Boy, who's first aim is always to be smarmy rather than elucidate, to equate Saddam's unprovoked, pernicious policy of domestic torture with what was done on a very select group of prisoners at Gitmo demonstrates an utter lack of proportionality or fairness.
For the record, Obama will not pursue this matter further if he knows what's good for him and his Party as it will set a dangerous precedent whereby the incoming administration seeks to rebuke the previous one through witchhunts. That would be the ultimate national security relations disaster.
What bothers me the most about Pelosi is not that she's a lying bitch and one of the most partisan Speakers ever but that she is a hypocrite. |
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