The CIA released documents late last night contradicting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's claim she was not briefed on actual use of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques. Nancy was briefed, says the CIA, on September 4, 2002. Here is the actual CIA memo on the Sept. 4 meeting.
The Washington Post's Capitol Briefing reports:
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.
More:
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.
The WP reports how the Speaker's office responded:
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.
Read also Jed Babbin's mini-piece at Human Events.
Whom to believe? The CIA is putting its head on the chopping block, literally, with this one. Porter Goss, who as ranking GOP Member of the House Intelligence Committee was briefed at that same briefing (later Goss was CIA Director) has already said Pelosi was informed. Nancy's office issued a "carefully worded statement." It is hard to take Nancy seriously on her claim that she was not told. Were that so, she would have flatly denied knowing about this stuff. "Guilty with an explanation" is a better reading.
Bottom Line. If, as appears likely, the Speaker of the House lied about what she knew and when she knew about harsh interrogation techniques, the least of Nancy Pelosi's sins is that she lied. The politician who has never at least fudged the truth is a politician who has never gotten elected to anything--keeping diverse coalitions together requires fancy footwork. A greater sin is that the Speaker roiled an already contentious domestic debate during wartime, in search of partisan political gain--further proof that Nancy has not a bipartisan bone in her body.
But the greatest sin of all is that Nancy, during wartime, gave aid and comfort to a deadly enemy--aid coming not from an obscure Member of Congress, but from the Speaker of the House, who is second in the line of succession to the Presidency. The only thing that saves her from a charge of treason is that treason requires intent to aid the enemy. Surely the Speaker did not intend to help our enemies attack the United States. She intended to help the fortunes of her political party, in reckless disregard of their impact upon national security. Fortunately for the Speaker, such a state of mind falls short of the level of intent required to support a charge of treason.
The House of Representatives can take action, however. It should expel her or, at least, censure her. A solidly Democratic House is not likely to do this. The GOP can be forgiven if it makes use of this opportunity to restore its credibility on detainee treatment, and to pay back unconscionable opportunism in time of war.
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