The First Draft: A case of she-said-CIA-said
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in the spotlight today, and it doesn’t sound pleasant. It’s an elaborate case of he-said-she-said, but this version features Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, versus the Central Intelligence Agency in a dispute over what she knew, and when she knew it, about harsh interrogation techniques of terror suspects.
It all came to a head at a Capitol Hill news conference on Thursday, where Pelosi accused the CIA of “misleading the Congress” about whether these so-called “enhanced” techniques had been used. But the CIA said last week that Pelosi had been told in September 2002 about the simulated drowning known as waterboarding. Pelosi said she only heard then about legal opinions administration that would have allowed these techniques, not that they had been used.
Karl Rove, a key adviser to President George W. Bush, joined the fray with a piece on The Wall Street Journal’s Web site, headlined, “Nancy Pelosi was an accomplice to ‘torture.’” Pelosi got needled in The Washington Post, in a feature that focused on her increasingly colorful body language during the briefing: “By now she had begun to employ her hands in the conversation, raising an index finger, circling her hands and finally moving both hands as if conducting an orchestra.”
On morning TV, Rep. Kit Bond, a Republican from Missouri who served with Pelosi on the House Intelligence Committee, took aim on NBC’s “Today”: “I think it’s a tragedy that we are seeing that massive attack on this intelligence community which has kept us safe … The Speaker is going after the agency and calling them liars … It’s clear they did tell her.”
This one may rattle around Washington for a while.
At the White House today, President Barack Obama stays largely out of sight, except for a ceremony with members of the 2008 World Series Champion Philadelphia Phillies. He may be preparing for his commencement address on Sunday at the University of Notre Dame, where he will receive an honorary degree — and probably some catcalls for his stance supporting abortion rights.
Photo credit: REUTERS/Saad Shalash (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at a news conference in Baghdad, May 10, 2009)
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its always a shame when someone gets caught in a lie and then they have to keep lying to cover the original lie is very sad. She should just keep her mouth shut and hope everything goes away but she keeps stirring the pot and shes going to be the soup.. Maybe she should just go home.. She sure isn’t helping her party any and she is really screwing with Obama’s adgenda.. He’s lieb to tell her to shut up which could be a good thing,,, growing up I learned one important factor,, donn’t go screwing with the federal agency like the FBI or the CIA they can be mean when need be and just because she thinks she is above us common people they can screw her just as well as they can screw with us,,,, NANCY-shut uup and go home
I realize the pro-torture crowd see some value in trying to exploit this for partisan gain, but is what Pelosi said really all that hard to believe? I don’t want to alarm anyone, but once in a while, the CIA is less than forthcoming with those who might try to limit their activities. This is especially true when the agency is engaged in conduct that might not be legal.
Also note the context. It was 2002 and 2003. The Bush administration was not only lying about Iraq, but administration officials had already begun committing acts of torture. Is it so outrageous to think that maybe, just maybe, the same Bush administration might not tell members of Congress the whole truth?
John Boehner said today he finds it “hard to imagine that our intelligence area would ever mislead a member of Congress.” This is the same John Boehner who, as recently as 2007, said that he didn’t trust U.S. intelligence agencies that gave him news he didn’t want to hear.
The phrase of the day is “feigned outrage.”
In 2002, the CIA was involved in the turmoil caused by the intelligence manipulation from the US Vice President’s Office of Special Projects at the Pentagon. It is entirely possible that the early briefs by the CIA deliberately glossed over methods actually used in interrogation. That details about interrogation were held secret for so long by the Bush administration would support Pelosi’s comment that her briefing was limited in disclosure of scope and method.
For example, was she shown the video tapes of interrogations? Did the CIA disclose that contractors carried out questioning? Did the CIA provide statistics of the harsh interrogation sessions and methods used to obtain actionable intelligence? Was the contractor’s qualifications for carrying out the interrogations described to Congress that was being asked to fund this “emergency” activity?
I say you should ask all the questions you want. You are desperately grasping at straws. Pelosi’s body language and the desperate tone of her voice says it all. She is caught in a lie and when you lie, you work to hard to make it look lie you didn’t lie. But that only creates another lie. And it keeps getting deeper and deeper until you can’t remember your last lie.
So, keep trying. She has already set the course for Steny Hoyer to become the next speaker of the house.
What difference does it make whether any Congressman or all Congressmen knew or were informed by the CIA>
The reality is THEY were not the ones who broke the law, We are off on a Tangent. As an aside we have to listen to Gingrich tell us how bad Pelosi is? This is a man who threw his wife under the bus while she was in the hospital with Cancer and then divorced her.
Does anyone in their right mind want this man to make moral judgements for them? Las comment Who would want to volunteer to have Newt make a judgement about them? Anyone suicidal these days?
Lets get back to step one. The Bush administration broke the law they should stand trial for their actions. This is not retribution by the Democratic party. More importantly we are a law abiding nation and that sums it up
I’m just going to throw this out there. I recently heard former Senator Bob Graham interviewed, he was Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the time that Pelosi was briefed in 2002.
The CIA claimed that Graham’s committee was briefed four times during ’02, however according to Graham’s notes and later confirmed by CIA his committee was briefed only once. During that briefing there was talk of the legality of enhanced methods but not of their actual use, as Pelosi claims.
Granted this a different committee than Pelosi’s and in Senate not the House but I can’t see why the CIA would give one briefing to the Senate and a different briefing to the House. What I do see is a former Senator backing up what Pelosi has said.
Now, let’s move on to the statements I’ve heard recently about how “the CIA would not deceive the US Congress”. Really?! Do we have to break out the list of times that the CIA has misled the Congress about it’s activities? It’s a long list that covers decades of covert ops by the CIA without Congressional oversight, approval or funding. Only the extremely naive would believe that the CIA has never misled the Congress about what it is up to, it’s a proven fact that they have done it in the past.
Lets not loose focus people Nancy Pelosi did not orchestrate the illegal torture she did not plan it she did not enable it she was told half truths by the CIA. Now we all know how ethical the CIA is …. George Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Carl Rove, Gonzolez etc did plan and implement illegal torture. These people should be held accountable. Nancy Pelosi is a victim when you stand her next to these hardened thugs. People were flown to enemy states for extreme torture (Beyond waterboarding anything goes torture) with full knowledege and planning of the Bush administration period. Lets not get side tracked prosecute Bush and his weak minded yes men. This is the greatest country in the world.
yes pelosi is the victim,they say she might have fallen asleep.unless she was doped so they could discuss the real agenda how they could pull of the 911 attack and blame it on the innocent middle easterners.