CQ TODAY PRINT EDITION
– CONGRESSIONAL AFFAIRS
April 23, 2009 – 3:25 p.m.
Pelosi Says She Was Never Told of Waterboarding
By Edward Epstein, CQ Staff
Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., emphatically denied Thursday that she was ever told by Bush administration intelligence officials that harsh interrogation techniques were being used on terrorism suspects.
It has been reported that congressional leaders, including Pelosi, were told about the controversial techniques at a 2002 briefing. At that time, she would have been included in such briefings in her role as ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
“I can say this — at that or any other briefing . . . we were not, I repeat, we were not, told that waterboarding or any other of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used,” the Speaker said at a news conference.
Pelosi said her recollection was, “They told us they had opinions from the [Justice Department’s] Office of Legal Counsel that they could, but not that they were” using so-called enhanced techniques, “and that if and when they were used, they would brief Congress at that time.” She said she was never told that such techniques were actually being used.
Pelosi, who has called for a “truth commission” to look into the Bush administration’s authorization of interrogation techniques that President Obama has now banned, said, “These are not glory days for our country in terms of enhanced interrogation techniques.”
Her comments came after several top Republicans, including House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio, said congressional leaders had been fully briefed on the use of the harsh techniques, including waterboarding of terrorism suspects.
“We believed it was something that had to be done in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to keep our nation safe. After many long and contentious debates, Congress repeatedly approved and funded this program on a bipartisan basis in both Republican and Democratic Congresses,” Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the intelligence panel’s ranking Republican, wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
Pelosi said she supports the Obama administration’s decision to shield from prosecution intelligence agents who carried out interrogations under guidelines set by Bush administration officials, while leaving open possible prosecution of those who wrote legal opinions authorizing such practices.
A Need for Change?
Pelosi said the controversy over the 2002 briefings proves her point that Congress needs to overhaul how it receives information from the intelligence community.
Pelosi served on the Intelligence Committee for a decade and said she only learned what intelligence officials chose to tell her, and that members had no way to question those secret decisions.
“As a member of Intelligence, I thought I was being briefed. I realized that was not true when I became ranking member” and got more information, she said.
She said that members who receive intelligence briefings are tied down by secrecy rules.
“The point is, they come in to inform you of what they are doing. . . . What recourse do we have? None,” she said, noting that members cannot discuss the contents of confidential briefings with other lawmakers, even the members of the Intelligence committees.
“They don’t come in to consult,” she said. They come in to notify. You can’t change what they do unless you can act as a committee.”
Pelosi has taken some steps to change the situation, but wants to do more. As Speaker, she created a joint committee of members from the Intelligence and Appropriations committees to share more information. She said she also wants more members to receive intelligence briefings.
Comments
Pelosi speeks with a forked tongue.
This just speaks to her incompetence as a leader. She never read the stimulus packeage so guess she can claim ignorance there as well.
Pelosi is not qualified to make decisions involving interrogation, or national security. That is why she was not informed, or chose to be uninformed. Incompetence at that level is unacceptable.
She is lying. I am a retired Army intelligence officer a veteran of 30 years service and wise to the ways of Washington. It is standard procedure to brief the Intel Commitee Chairman and Ranking Member as well as the Speaker, Minority Leaders and the Senate Majority Leader on "controversial" issues. It is also a lie when she said that she and other Congressional members have "no recourse" to Executive Branch decisions on intelligence and military operations. Congress has the ultimate hammer, the power of the purse, and can always go see the President and argue valid points, and ultimately, go public if they feel that is a "Nuremberg" type of issue. This woman has to go before she , Reid, and Obama totally "change" (aka destroy) this country.
If torture works then why did they never torture Saddam? Consider what that tells us. This past week, a parade of former Bush Administration hacks, such as former NSA Director Hayden and VP Cheney himself are going around telling us "torture works". Nonsense, of course, but if they truly believe that (and it appears they do), then what does the fact they never tortured Saddam Hussein tell us? If they REALLY believed all that crap about Saddam's WMD's and ties to al Qaeda (if not 9/11 itself), why didn't they torture him to reveal, "What did you do with the weapons of mass destruction?" and "what was your involvement with al Qaeda?". Think about that for a moment. Saddam was captured just months after the invasion of Iraq, when the possibility that "stockpiles" of WMD's they insisted existed pre-invasion may have simply been moved or hidden prior to the invasion. Yet, they never tortured him to find out what he had done with them. This tells us they they NEVER believed the WMD's ever existed. Nor did they torture Saddam to find out what contacts he had with al Qaeda. In fact, quite the opposite: clearly, because they already knew none of it was true: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32LnjWJTHcg
Seeing waterboarding made me laugh...my older brothers did worse then that to me when we were kids. How is this torture? I guess throw half my family and school friends into prison for torture then. Pelosi is such a joke, that I won't waste time even attempting to explain how crazy she is...doesn't everyone already just take this fact as a given by now anyway? All the jabs at Bush for lying, but I've never seen such fallacies as I do coming from the Obama admin.
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