Pelosi vs the CIA: A Sad Fight
| Fri May. 15, 2009 8:56 AM PDT
Here's a good example of what's been wrong with congressional oversight of the intelligence agencies for decades: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the CIA did not tell her at a September 2002 briefing (when she was the senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee) that it had used waterboarding on a captured al Qaeda operative; the CIA says it did. And this dispute apparently cannot be settled. From The Washington Post:
Government officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified briefings, suggested that the record might never be clear as to what Pelosi and [Republican Rep. Porter] Goss were told. One official familiar with the congressional briefings acknowledged the difficulty of establishing exactly what lawmakers were told. Internal CIA memos about the briefings were "not designed to be stenography" but were based on recollections after the fact, the official said. There were no recordings or precise transcripts, he said.
Shouldn't there be better record-keeping? It's pretty absurd that the CIA cannot say what it actually told a legislator during an official briefing.
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Pelosi has accused the CIA of lying, claiming that at this September 2002 briefing she had been informed that waterboarding was under consideration, but not yet in use. She says she learned a few months later that Rep. Jane Harman, her successor as the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, had been told by the CIA that waterboarding had been employed. In any event, there's no indication Pelosi made a fuss about waterboarding during this timeframe.
But given that Pelosi says the CIA is lying—a rather serious charge—doesn't the American public deserve to know if she's telling the truth about that? How sad that the agency that is supposed to discover secrets from around the world to keep us safe cannot determine what it did or did not say to a legislator in charge of watching the spies.
Comments
"How sad that the agency
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri May. 15, 2009 9:54 AM PDT.
"How sad that the agency that is supposed to discover secrets from around the world to keep us safe cannot determine what it did or did not say to a legislator in charge of watching the spies."
"It's pretty absurd that the CIA cannot say what it actually told a legislator during an official briefing."
Isn't it also sad and absurd that the 3rd most powerful person in the US will put our country in jeopardy, and slander the CIA to save her political career?
we need a truth commission!
Submitted by ceenik on Fri May. 15, 2009 11:56 AM PDT.
At least Pelosi favors an investigation of the torture issue, which is something that most of her detractors seem to fear!
Sexism Distracting From Torture
Submitted by Ankhorite on Fri May. 15, 2009 12:47 PM PDT.
The far right generally understands that constantly attacking Obama will be perceived in many quarters as simple racism, so their target of choice is Pelosi, taking the place Hillary Clinton used to hold in right-wing demonology as a modern Lilith who cannot be controlled and must be punished.
De-facto head of the Republican Party Rush Limbaugh today said that women's equality demands Pelosi's resignation, that she be punished like two male Speakers of the House who resigned (both of whom got caught having affairs while persecuting other political figures for having affairs). He raged and stormed about how she should "break the glass ceiling" by submitting her resignation. Dream on! His ludicrous introduction of "the woman issue" into this squabble underlines the misogyny that permeates the Republican base. Keep talking, buddy.
The great shame here, though, is that the pack-mentality press focus on Pelosi - what did she know and when did she know it - largely ignores that a) she didn't order the torture and b) no matter what she knew, no matter when she knew it, she could do nothing. Bush and the CIA didn't need her permission. She couldn't tell the public, or even other members of Congress, without herself committing a felony by releasing classified information.
Even if she knew (and the CIA has done nothing to prove she did, despite CIA Director Panetta's attempt at internal morale-building this morning in remarks defending the agency), SHE was not the one ordering the torture. Yet the mainstream press is mobbing Pelosi, instead of noting that the Republican ferocity in claiming she must have known and is therefore somehow guilty of torture is THEIR admission that they know the Bush Administration DID order and DID perpetrate that torture.
Back to Panetta: Pelosi was in the room for the briefings. Panetta wasn't. Which of them is more likely to accurately know what was said?
Squirm, baby, squirm
Submitted by Raul (not verified) on Fri May. 15, 2009 5:43 PM PDT.
Nancy, Nancy, Nancy. Squirm, baby, squirm. She looked sooooo funny, trying to "explain" AGAIN what happened. It was hilarious watching her. It was as if she were trying to explain what the naked man was doing in her bed. "But Paul, he, he, he tricked me. Yeah, that's the ticket" LOL
Pelosi and interrogation
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri May. 15, 2009 5:54 PM PDT.
Isn't the most likely explanation that, just one year after 9/11, Pelosi was willing to go along with whatever the CIA said they needed to do, and now, eight (locally!) peaceful years later, it's easy to say that they shouldn't have done it then? It's essentially the same argument as going to war in Iraq: at the time, the President had to make a decision, and Congress backed him on going to war. A few years later, when Hussein's bluff has been called, it's easy to say that they shouldn't have done it then.
nice topic
Submitted by Ivy (not verified) on Fri May. 15, 2009 7:20 PM PDT.
i am truly convinced that Nancy Pelosi is somgthing. she has been a formidable force within the Democrats, raising more money than any other congressional Democrat
CIA #@*
Submitted by diver (not verified) on Sat May. 16, 2009 5:43 AM PDT.
The CIA (masters of deception) should be disbanded. They destroy video tapes of proof of their torture. They supposedly can't keep records of what they tell politicians in secret. Why are they paid by taxpayers?
Why?
Submitted by Crow T. Robot (not verified) on Sat May. 16, 2009 12:04 PM PDT.
Why are they paid by taxpayers?That would be because the DemoPublican and RepubliCrat Leadership and Membership of the House and Senate keep sending the Presidents bills to provide them with generous funding and nearly unchecked powers, and the Presidents keep signing them, while their lapdogs in the press keep assuring us that as bad as it all may seem, there are no better alternatives. And we voting idiots keep sending the same old Oligarchy back to Washington, and buying the products of whichever batch of media lapdogs we've managed to convince ourselves are telling us the straight story.
Legacy of Ashes
Submitted by brainiak (not verified) on Sat May. 16, 2009 9:19 AM PDT.
Read the Legacy of Ashes by Tim Wiener. It has the now unclassified details of the history of the CIA.
The CIA basically lied, told the presidents what they wanted to hear, or what they thought was correct without facts to back it up. The history of incompetence and lies is pretty compelling.
I am no fan of Pelosi, but given the CIA's history of incompetence and lies, I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
How come none of the mainstream media is bring up the fact that the Iraq war was based on false or poor intelligence? Again pointing to the competency of the agency (and lack thereof). Why would they be right now?
Pure, Political B.S. From Both Sides.
Submitted by Tom Servo (not verified) on Sat May. 16, 2009 11:55 AM PDT.
Just about what you'd expect, if you've figured out that you aren't going to get the whole truth and nothing but the truth from 99.99% of the politicians, bureaucrats and media types who inhabit the beltway.
No liberty-loving citizen should ever take a single word coming from a secret-police agency like the CIA at face value, but...:
Pelosi didn't help her credibility Thursday when she admitted that despite earlier denials, she did later know water-boarding was being used. Her explanation for the discrepancy: Her previous denials were about what she personally had been briefed on. She learned about water-boarding from a staffer. That kind of parsing is hard to sustain in a public fight. It also raises questions about why, if she was so adamant about torture, she didn't do more at the time. By contrast, when John McCain learned about water-boarding, he did get exercised about it and took measures to stop it.Source: Slate
Pelosi/CIA
Submitted by Marra (not verified) on Sat May. 16, 2009 8:38 PM PDT.
Oh please. There's a question as to who is telling the truth? Pelosi or the CIA. Pelosi or the CIA. Pelosi or the CIA. Let's see. Pelosi or the CIA. Gee, given what we know about the history of each (and as citizens and sponsors of)... Let me take a guess; The CIA is not telling the truth.
Well, most of you are a bunch of idiots in denial
Submitted by SiliconDoc (not verified) on Sun May. 17, 2009 1:00 PM PDT.
Look, who gives a ding dang how much the dingbat lies, or how much the secret black op cage match veterans lie ?
____________
Look at it this way. You've all been to a public swimming pool or for you elites your private Olympic pool, and you've all dunked your little brothers and sisters and freinds and vise versa. Your poor tiny raggy headed noggin went underwater when the mean bully or your big sister jumped up and with both hands on top of your gourd, shoved your spindly caving neck and bobblehad under the dunk...
You thrashed and kept your mouth shut if you had any sense, others opened their yap and started screaming, bubbles flwoing up - water going in the nose and gut and lungs...
Eventually the lifeguard blew the whistle, or daddy warbucks put an ned to it.
Your tortured, shaking, crying limp carcass crawled to safety, gagging and hacking a big green floater luggie into the pool.
It probably happened to all of you at least a dozen times. Some made a whole afternoon of watertorture with their best buds or most hated siblings, etc..
_________________
Now, nearly the exact same thing is a geedarn national crisis.
____________________
What we have here is JUVEE-NATION !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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The amazingly infantile and base stupidity of it all is extremely embarrassing to say the least.
_________
The lies surrounding the whole matter are many and ridiculous.
________
The Geneva Convention allows any sort of info extraction and extermination for non uniformed combatants or whatever other bat brained named the batcave came up with this week.
If you want to be so pure and lovely that you can't handle a dunking pool anymore, fine.
Just please, keep it to yourself, it's just so pathetically childish and surpasses all former fantatical tree hugging exercises I've ever seen in my entire life.
_________________________________
I'm quite astounded and I'm sick of paying for lemon chicken eau da tere for insane religious fanatic fundamentalists in a 200 million dollar facility, then watching my fellow americans argue over dunk water on the face like kids in a ding dang swimming pool !
My GAWD this is a FARCE !
This is No Damned Dunking We Are Discussing!
Submitted by kennardbjayers on Sun May. 17, 2009 6:40 PM PDT.
If it were as simple as childs play in the pool it wouldn't be considered harsh enough to extract intelligence from terrorists or anything they might say just to get the torture to stop. And, now that they want to say Pelosi knew about it and that makes her guilty of torture. Well, we might not be able to determine whether she did or did not know, but Dick Cheney has been bold enough to say he approved of it. We as Americans don't use torture on prisoners, detainees, or anyone else. It is wrong and unjustified, and is not even considered a reliable means of getting information you can depend on as factual. The only thing simple as childs play in this situation is the minds of people like you who would oversimplify anything the government would do. Yours is the base stupidity. Someone must have held you under the water for entirely too long!
Ken Ayers, Baltimore, Md.
Pelosi
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon May. 18, 2009 9:40 AM PDT.
This is the same congresswoman who earmarked special tax status for her husband. She can't e trusted to tell the truth. We only know for certain that Nancy is lying when her lips are moving or her eyes are open. Lets get rid of this low class name caller who is the antithesis of class and leadership.
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