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Topic: Lying Bitch Outed. Reason for Political Impossibility of Torture Trials Evident. (Read 547 times) |
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Hermit
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Lying Bitch Outed. Reason for Political Impossibility of Torture Trials Evident.
« on: 2009-05-08 10:43:05 » |
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CIA Says Pelosi Was Briefed on Use of 'Enhanced Interrogations'
Source: Washington Post
Authors: Paul Kane
Dated: 2009-05-07
Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used.
In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress ever briefed on the interrogation tactics. Then the ranking member and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, respectively, Pelosi and Goss were briefed Sept. 4, 2002, one week before the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The memo, issued by the Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency to Capitol Hill, notes the Pelosi-Goss briefing covered "EITs including the use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah." EIT is an acronym for enhanced interrogation technique. Zubaydah was one of the earliest valuable al-Qaeda members captured and the first to have the controversial tactic known as water boarding used against him.
The issue of what Pelosi knew and when she knew it has become a matter of heated debate on Capitol Hill. Republicans have accused her of knowing for many years precisely the techniques CIA agents were using in interrogations, and only protesting the tactics when they became public and liberal antiwar activists protested.
In a carefully worded statement, Pelosi's office said today that she had never been briefed about the use of waterboarding, only that it had been approved by Bush administration lawyers as a legal technique to use in interrogations.
"As this document shows, the Speaker was briefed only once, in September 2002. The briefers described these techniques, said they were legal, but said that waterboarding had not yet been used," said Brendan Daly, Pelosi's spokesman.
Pelosi's statement did not address whether she was informed that other harsh techniques were already in use during the Zubaydah interrogations.
In December 2007 the Washington Post reported that leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees had been briefed in the fall of 2002 about waterboarding -- which simulates drowning -- and other techniques, and that no congressional leaders protested its use. At the time Pelosi said she was not told that waterboarding was being used, a position she stood by repeatedly last month when the Bush-era Justice Department legal documents justifying the interrogation tactics were released by Attorney General Eric Holder.
The new memo shows that intelligence officials were willing to share the information about waterboarding with only a sharply closed group of people. Three years after the initial Pelosi-Goss briefing, Bush officials still limited interrogation technique briefings to just the chairman and ranking member of the House and Senate intelligence committees, the so-called Gang of Four in the intelligence world.
In October 2005, CIA officials began briefing other congressional leaders with oversight of the intelligence community, including top appropriators who provided the agency its annual funding. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam and an opponent of torture techniques, was also read into the program at that time even though he did not hold a special committee position overseeing the intelligence community.
A bipartisan collection of lawmakers have criticized the practice of limiting information to just the "Gang of Four", who were expressly forbidden from talking about the information from other colleagues, including fellow members of the intelligence committees. Pelosi and others are considering reforms that would assure a more open process for all committee members.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Lying Bitch Outed. Reason for Political Impossibility of Torture Trials Evide
« Reply #1 on: 2009-05-15 03:25:06 » |
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Speaker's Comments Raise Detainee Debate to New Level
[ Hermit : As I was saying ]
Source: Washington Post
Authors: Dan Balz (Author, Staff Writer), Alice Crites (Research editor)
Dated: 2009-05-15
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's extraordinary accusation that the Bush administration lied to Congress about the use of harsh interrogation techniques dramatically raised the stakes in the growing debate over the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies even as it raised some questions about the speaker's credibility.
Pelosi's performance in the Capitol was either a calculated escalation of a long-running feud with the Bush administration or a reckless act by a politician whose word had been called into question. Perhaps it was both.
For the first time, Pelosi (D-Calif.) acknowledged that in 2003 she was informed by an aide that the CIA had told others in Congress that officials had used waterboarding during interrogations. But she insisted, contrary to CIA accounts, that she was not told about waterboarding during a September 2002 briefing by agency officials. Asked whether she was accusing the CIA of lying, she replied, "Yes, misleading the Congress of the United States."
Washington now is engaged in a battle royal of finger-pointing, second-guessing and self-defense, all over techniques President Obama banned in the first days of his administration. Both sides in this debate believe they have something to prove -- and gain -- by keeping the fight alive.
Both sides have champions and villains. Pelosi has become a lightning rod for criticism from conservatives, and a hero to the left, much as former vice president Richard B. Cheney has become a target of the left and the darling of many on the right.
The speaker's charges about the CIA's alleged deception and her shifting accounts of what she knew and when she knew it are likely to add to calls for some kind of independent body to investigate this supercharged issue, though Obama and many members of Congress would like to avoid a wholesale unearthing of the past at a time when their plates are full with pressing concerns.
Closing the books on the George W. Bush years has proven harder than anyone imagined -- certainly harder than Obama hoped. The intensifying argument over what the CIA told Pelosi and when comes on top of the debate over whether any Bush administration officials should face legal action for their roles in authorizing or implementing the interrogation policies and whether a national commission is needed to get to the truth. [ Hermit : A national commission is not needed. At question is not whether the US tortured people, nor who ordered it, nor even who performed it. Not even who knew about it.The only question is whether the Obama DOJ (it is after 100 days Mo) will uphold law, treaty and precedent and prosecute those who did it, or will it continue, at the insistence of the Obama administration, to violate its constitutional and legal duty and shield the guilty from the consequences of their criminal actions, making them parties to the crime. ]
The speaker's discomfort was evident yesterday as she was grilled by reporters for the first time since the CIA issued information suggesting that she and others were told about the use of the techniques, including waterboarding, at a classified briefing on Sept. 4, 2002. Pelosi was then the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee.
The CIA said the briefing included Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter J. Goss (Fla.), who was the committee chairman at the time and who later became CIA director. Two House aides also attended. The CIA's account said the subject was enhanced interrogation techniques and the particular methods used on Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, better known by the nom de guerre Abu Zubaida.
Five months later, on Feb. 5, 2003, after Pelosi had left the intelligence committee, the CIA briefed the panel's chairman and ranking minority-party member on the detainee interrogation program. Pelosi said her aide Michael Sheehy, who attended that briefing as well as the September briefing, told her that agency officials said they had used waterboarding in some cases. "He said that the committee chair and ranking member and appropriate staff had been briefed that these techniques were now being used," she said yesterday. "That's all I was informed."
Conservatives say that, if Pelosi was so opposed to torture, she should have spoken out forcefully when she learned that these techniques were being employed. Her failure to do so then leaves her in a weakened position to protest now, they argue. An op-ed article by senior Bush White House adviser Karl Rove in yesterday's Wall Street Journal asked directly: "So is the speaker of the House lying about what she knew and when? And, if so, what will Democrats do about it?"
Pelosi gave some ground on the question of whether she had been informed that waterboarding was being used -- though by her account she did not learn about it until February 2003, rather than in 2002, and then only from her aide. Instead of registering her protest to the administration, she said, she set out to help Democrats win control of Congress and elect a Democrat as president.
But in attempting to defend herself, Pelosi took the remarkable step of trying to shift the focus of blame to the CIA and the Bush administration, claiming that the CIA accounts represented a diversionary tactic in the real debate over the interrogation policies. That amounted to a virtual declaration of war against the CIA at a time when the Obama administration already has rattled morale at the agency with the release of Justice Department memos authorizing the harsh interrogation techniques.
House Republican Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) was quick to challenge Pelosi. Within minutes of her contentious news conference, he emerged to question her accusations. He left no doubt that Republicans believe that the speaker has made a major misstep that will hurt her and perhaps her party as this controversy plays out.
The various parties all have their own priorities now. Pelosi not only wants to clear her name but also favors a truth commission to answer questions about how the interrogation policies came to be and whether they were as effective as Cheney and others claim. Cheney is determined to defend the policies he helped shape and to force the new administration into a different posture on its anti-terrorism strategy. Outside groups, and the grass-roots activists they speak for, are prepared to continue litigating the Bush presidency.
Obama has already moved on his policies, deciding to fight the public release of photos showing U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners after earlier saying he favored their release. He cited potential danger for U.S. soldiers that could be caused by the photos' release, but he must have concluded that the photos would set off another storm at home as well.
The president wants the focus kept on the future and the energies of his entire administration, from the CIA to the Defense Department, as well as the relevant committees on Capitol Hill, engaged in producing an effective policy in Afghanistan and sorting through such difficult questions as what to do with the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, once that facility is closed next year. [Hermit : People should also be asking why the US military spending, which under Bush was at $G 487.7 (publicly disclosed) and had already exceeded the total military spending of the rest of the world has increased to $G 527 under the Obama administration. In both cases the actual expenditure is about double the publicly disclosed amounts. ] [/i]
Pelosi is not out of the woods. She could have saved herself some trouble by admitting earlier that she had been informed that the CIA was using waterboarding. By doing what she did yesterday, she has assured that she will remain a central character in the political fight that is raging. But whether by design or accident, she also succeeded in enlarging a controversy that is no longer a sideshow.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Lying Bitch Outed. Reason for Political Impossibility of Torture Trials Evide
« Reply #2 on: 2009-05-15 09:42:35 » |
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This is more show than news. Yes, Pelosi may have tripped herself up, changed her position a bit, protected the knowledge of her knowledge. Certainly she's acting duly embarrassed, and perhaps she should have done something and much sooner. Perhaps it invokes some moral liability on her part, but it doesn't put her in any significant criminal liability. Feel free to baptise her in the mud she deserves, but this really is just a diversion from the actual authors and implementers of the torture policy. I think she will survive just fine in the end. She's just an intermediate target for the neo-cons to wipe some of their own guilt on. If they are lucky, she might have to relinquish her speakership, but she isn't going away. Cheney on the other hand . . .
In any case, I don't think Pelosi will have much influence over any final decisions on whether or who to prosecute. That's Holder's territory. She would have some influence over congressional investigations, and I don't think she is going to give that up at this point over some minor personal embarrassments. Certainly if they go forward, she will insure that others more deserving get smeared up much more than herself. She'll have plenty of time to apologize for herself after they've moved on to someone else much more interesting. I don't think she'd pass up the opportunity to influence the spreading of that crap around. 
Incidentally, while I'm not saying I necessarily believe her, I find it entirely believable that the CIA is or was being deceptive to her or about their briefing of her. This was the same CIA who participated in cooking the intelligence for the Iraq war. Next to that kind of breach, I'm sure lots of other good policies start looking relatively optional. While political insiders may gasp at her audacity in questioning the honesty of the CIA, they have through their own participation in this made a credible political target out of themselves these days. Even if she's the more dishonest, she's certainly got a good instinct on that count.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Hermit
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Re:Lying Bitch Outed. Reason for Political Impossibility of Torture Trials Evide
« Reply #3 on: 2009-05-15 11:43:08 » |
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[MoEnzyme] <snip>Perhaps it invokes some moral liability on her part, but it doesn't put her in any significant criminal liability. Feel free to baptise her in the mud she deserves, but this really is just a diversion from the actual authors and implementers of the torture policy<snip> [ Hermit : My emphasis ]
[Hermit]
No matter how poor the CIA's record keeping (and it is), or vicious their intentions towards her (and they may be) and even how easy it is to misremember, the trouble is that after repeatedly denying that she had been briefed on torture methods (not, I think, something anyone could easily forget), she has acknowledged that indeed she was - but only after the CIA had effectively outed her and she had again denied it. Which leaves her with about as much credibility as Larry "I did not suck that dick" Craig denying his sexual orientation.
What I think you are missing is the immense role which self-defence is probably playing in causing the Democrats to agree to "move on," and so becoming parties to the massive breaches of US and International law perpetrated by the Cheney-Bush unregime. It is one thing for an uninvolved party to decide that there is no prosecutable offence. It is something else indeed for a party who should probably be indicted as an accessory and possibly as a conspirator to call for the same. I suggest that if it were not for the identities involved that you might be the first to acknowledge this.
Kindest Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Lying Bitch Outed. Reason for Political Impossibility of Torture Trials Evide
« Reply #4 on: 2009-05-15 22:43:49 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2009-05-15 11:43:08 [MoEnzyme] <snip>Perhaps it invokes some moral liability on her part, but it doesn't put her in any significant criminal liability. Feel free to baptise her in the mud she deserves, but this really is just a diversion from the actual authors and implementers of the torture policy<snip> [ Hermit : My emphasis ]
[Hermit]
No matter how poor the CIA's record keeping (and it is), or vicious their intentions towards her (and they may be) and even how easy it is to misremember, the trouble is that after repeatedly denying that she had been briefed on torture methods (not, I think, something anyone could easily forget), she has acknowledged that indeed she was - but only after the CIA had effectively outed her and she had again denied it. Which leaves her with about as much credibility as Larry "I did not suck that dick" Craig denying his sexual orientation.
What I think you are missing is the immense role which self-defence is probably playing in causing the Democrats to agree to "move on," and so becoming parties to the massive breaches of US and International law perpetrated by the Cheney-Bush unregime. It is one thing for an uninvolved party to decide that there is no prosecutable offence. It is something else indeed for a party who should probably be indicted as an accessory and possibly as a conspirator to call for the same. I suggest that if it were not for the identities involved that you might be the first to acknowledge this.
Kindest Regards
Hermit
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Ah yeah, but you've got that base already covered. As I've shared with Blunderov, I think the release of the torture memos have set in motion reactions which will ultimately prevent this issue from being dropped. Certainly Cheney seems determined to keep that fire burning for his own guiltily warped cause. The only thing that will stop him now would probably be a special prosecutor obtaining an indictment against him - an amazingly self-destructive death spiral here - if only we can get the remains of the GOP to follow him to the end conga-line style.
In the meantime, as in any abuse of power case, it can often be difficult for practical reasons to find a truly uninvolved politician to press the case. That however shouldn't prevent the case from being pressed. I think Pelosi senses that this issue will ultimately limit her speakership, as it should - if nothing else she may become a witness at which point holding on may become a near impossibility. I think if she realizes that, she can sow seeds for her return in the way she ultimately handles the torture issue. She may be running for cover today, but I'm sure Cheney won't be shutting up anytime soon. The issue promotes itself in true memetic fashion. Pelosi will certainly have more opportunities to change her position. Those photos WILL be coming out even if Obama has successfully delayed that for now. Its already settled law. I'm sure the Supremes will turn down the review at which point Obama can say "I did what I could but the courts stopped me." So there are definitely at least several more news cycles about torture that everyone can count on at some point in the forseeable future.
Torture seems an amazingly memetic topic that way. Not having an opinion about it is difficult if not impossible.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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