What did Pelosi Know about Torture and When Did She etc.? & Other Questions I'm Waiting to Hear Answered

by Damozel | That Pelosi had some knowledge of the interrogation techniques from the get-go isn't exactly news.  Back in 2007, WaPo published an article indicating that several top Dems were given this information at the outset and that only Jane Harman -- yes, Jane Harman -- protested.  Most progressives I follow were outraged then and are prepared to be equally outraged now once we've got the facts. [See Did Congressional Democrats Condone the CIA's Secret Interrogation Program? (12-9-2007)].

Unlike certain members of the GOP, we don't have any desire to cover up or excuse the failings of erring Dems.  We want to throw the rascals out and get better ones.  And now WaPo asserts the following:

Pelosi has insisted that she was not directly briefed by Bush administration officials that the practice was being actively employed. But Michael Sheehy, a top Pelosi aide, was present for a classified briefing that included  Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), then the ranking minority member of the House intelligence committee, at which agency officials discussed the use of waterboarding on terrorism suspect Abu Zubaida.

A Democratic source acknowledged yesterday that it is almost certain that Pelosi would have learned about the use of waterboarding from Sheehy. Pelosi herself acknowledged in a December 2007 statement that she was aware that Harman had learned of the waterboarding and had objected in a letter to the CIA's top counsel.  (WaPo)

Republicans have argued -- and perhaps for once they may turn out to be right -- that some leading Dems back in 2003 let the Bush administration proceed without objection.  (WaPo)  I'd like to know myself the extent to which this is true (since it is pretty clear that some of them had been briefed). 

The new documents released to Congress by the CIA on Thursday stated that Pelosi was briefed on the "use of" harsh interrogation techniques in September 2002, although the documents do not state that waterboarding was mentioned.

The absence of any description in the new documents of her being briefed on waterboarding has become a critical distinction for Pelosi. She has said that briefers discussed waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques as legal options but that they never told her such methods were being used.

"We were not -- I repeat -- 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 . . . Office of [Legal] Counsel opinions, that they could be used, but not that they would," she told reporters on April 23.

A top aide reiterated that position yesterday. "The speaker was briefed only once, in September 2002," said spokesman Brendan Daly. "The briefers described these techniques, said they were legal, but said that waterboarding had not yet been used."...

Neither Pelosi nor her staff would comment on how she learned of the techniques she now considers torture, and Harman said in an interview that she "did not recall" discussing the issue with Pelosi. Sheehy was Pelosi's top aide on the intelligence committee when she served as the ranking Democrat on that panel, and he remained her top national security aide until he left the speaker's office this year. (WaPo)

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of lawmakers say "the restrictions placed on the intelligence committee leaders -- the "Gang of Four," which included the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate panels -- limited any oversight role Congress could play." (WaPo)  Members of the intelligence panels had access to "sensitive" top level classified information, but were they were "forbidden" to discuss it.  Pelosi might have known something.  The question is how much?

Pelosi's only briefing came Sept. 4, 2002, a week before the first anniversary of the attacks, and included then-Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), who at the time was chairman of the intelligence committee. Along with their chief counsels, they were the first congressional officials briefed on the interrogation tactics. Pelosi left the intelligence committee in January 2003 to become the House Democratic leader, remaining one of eight lawmakers who had the highest clearances to access classified information.

Five months after the Pelosi-Goss meeting, in briefings for the new leaders of the Senate intelligence committee, the CIA "described in considerable detail . . . how the water board was used," according to the documents released Thursday. The next day, Feb. 5, 2003, Harman received a similar briefing as Pelosi's replacement as the top House intelligence committee Democrat.

Harman was surprised at what she learned, particularly that intelligence officials had video of the waterboarding of Abu Zubaida and were planning on destroying it.(WaPo)

Her response was interesting. 

Harman wrote to the CIA's general counsel on Feb. 10, 2003, to question whether the methods "are consistent with the principles and policies of the United States. Have enhanced techniques been authorized and approved by the president?"(WaPo)

Harman didn't get back much of a response, she now says.  Which as far as I'm concerned still begs the question of why, if Pelosi and other Dems were aware of what was happening, they didn't at least vigorously object and keep on objecting. 

GOP Rep. Pete Hoekstra says he's seen documents that prove that Pelosi was briefed on "all interrogation techniques that had been used," including waterboarding.  (The Plum Line)  

TPM says that the CIA reports show that Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the then ranking Dem on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was briefed in 2003.  But what was he told?

[T]here's an asterisk next to Rockefeller's name in the document for the February 2003 briefing, under which it says: "Later individual briefing for Rockefeller."… Sen. Rockefeller's office emails the following statement:

Senator Rockefeller was briefed but was not presented with the full picture nor was he told critical information that would have cast significant doubt on the program's legality and effectiveness. Senator Rockefeller became increasingly concerned about the program, and in early 2005 he launched a full-scale effort to investigate. The Senate Intelligence Committee's review is ongoing and he believes it is critically important that there be a full accounting of the Bush Administration's interrogation policies.  (TPM)

He said, she said.  She said, he said. Listen, given the way that Dems fell into line about Iraq, I won't have any trouble believing that they might have done the same on torture.  I've been bemused by Ms. Pelosi many times before, after all, including -- for example -- by her taking impeachment off the table practically the second the Dems prevailed in the House and by her puzzling reversal on telecom immunity.

And I guess I'm curious also as to whether any, erm, pressure was brought to bear. All I need is clear evidence that she did know. 

Dday is skeptical about the allegations, but prepared to hold Dems accountable to the extent they are as much as Republicans.   

War crimes are not mollified by their bipartisan nature, or by a caveat that others were briefed about the war crimes after the fact. Those of us who expect accountability when people in government break the law really aren't concerned with the letter next to their name designating their political party. In fact, this only further cements the need for an independent prosecutor who can bring his own judgments untainted by party to this whole affair. And if Republicans think that threatening to look into crimes from the Clinton Administration will send a chill among those who desire accountability, they're wrong.

  Taylor Marsh writes:

Pelosi’s denial of being briefed on waterboarding continues to stand. But will the distinctions she’s making make a difference as we learn the wide circle of Democrats who eventually had inklings of what was going on inside the interrogations? It seems clear that knowledge flowed to Pelosi from others, even if she wasn’t personally briefed…Let’s put the truth, the whole truth, on the table. No matter where it leads.   (emphasis added)

Amen to that.

Andrew Sullivan suggests that if Dems as well as Republicans are tossed in the mix, the case for accountability is actually helped. 

Responsibility for creating and perpetuating the torture program lies with Bush and Cheney - but if they brought in senior Democrats who did not complain or do all they could to stop it, then those Democrats bear some responsibility as well.

If the investigation includes the current Democratic speaker as a potential target, it can hardly be dismissed as partisan. And it isn't partisan. God knows I would prefer it if the president I supported in 2000 had not committed war crimes. God knows I wish people I respect had not found a way to ignore, defend or even praise thesm. But the truth is as it is. And we need to know all of it, in context, with time, with the chips falling as they may.  (The Daily Dish)

And amen to that as well.

Memeorandum has more on this story.

RECENT BUCK NAKED POLITICS POSTINGS

Quote of the Day: GOP Chair Michael Steele on Judges with Empathy

CBS Announcer Says Any US Soldier Would be Glad to Assassinate Reid and Pelosi

White House Military Aide Office Director Louis Caldera Resigns Following Statute of Liberty Publicity Photo Debacle

TPMtv's "The Day in 100 Seconds" (May 8, 2009 Video)

Simon Johnson Says Stress Tests are a "Whitewash"

Chair of NY Fed Chair Quits After Continuing Role at Goldman Questioned

Congressman Alan Grayson Votes to Protect Homeowners

TPMtv's "The Day in 100 Seconds" (May 7, 2009 Video)

The Daily Show: "Apakalypse Now" (Pakistan & Afghanistan)

"A Higher Platform of Morality": US Air Strikes in Afghanistan Kill Dozens of Civilians

Comments

[Peggy McGilligan]

Now the public is gets a whiff of the Democrat’s stock excuse when called on the carpet. Remember, there’s no shortage of “lawyers,” both real and imagined among them. Ms. Pelosi posits the information she received from CIA was merely FYI, for your information. I’ve seen this a thousand times. A CIA briefing on water boarding equated to her Uncle Fred in Front Royal, VA, calling to say he’d found squirrel poop on the back porch. What’s she supposed to do? It works – a straw man. That Ms. Pelosi admits CIA, in the scope of its duty, told her about water boarding, in the scope of her job, will be a moot point. Madame Speaker once again home free: http://theseedsof9-11.com