LOL at the part I bolded above. The CIA did real harm to Bush (Plame ring a bell?) D'oh, Nancy. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2009/05/pelosi_accuses_cia_of.html Pelosi Accuses CIA of 'Misleading' Her on Interrogations By Paul Kane House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today accused the CIA of "misleading" her on the use of harsh interrogation techniques in the fall of 2002, acknowledging for the first time publicly she knew alleged terrorist detainees were subjected to waterboarding more than six years ago. Pelosi called for the CIA to release detailed notes from her own September 2002 briefing about interrogation techniques.She said today that, at that 2002 briefing, she was told the CIA was not waterboarding detainees despite later government reports showing that a high value al Qaeda detainee had been subjected to waterboarding 83 times in the weeks leading up to Pelosi's briefing. "At every step of the way, the administration was misleading the Congress. And that is the issue," Pelosi said in a heated news conference, linking the alleged misinformation on waterboarding to now discredited intelligence reports in fall 2002 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Today was Pelosi's first chance to address the interrogation briefing issue since the CIA released a detailed memo last Thursday outlining 40 congressional briefings given since September 2002 regarding the use of what it calls "enhanced interrogation techniques" on suspected terrorists. That memo included footnotes that appeared to contradict Pelosi's previous statements that she was never personally briefed by Bush administration officials on the use of such tactics, including waterboading, a controversial technique that simulates drowning. In a statement today, the agency stood by its memo, which said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.), the top members of the intelligence committee at the time, were briefed on Sept. 4, 2002 on the "the use of EITS" on an al Qaeda prisoner. "The language in the chart--'a description of the particular EITs that had been employed'--is true to the language in the Agency's records," a CIA spokesman said. However, the agency reiterated its pronouncement from last week, when CIA Director Leon Panetta wrote to Congress that agency officials were relying on old "notes that summarized the best recollections of those individuals." Classified memos, with more detailed accounts of those recollection, remain under seal at the agency's Langley, Va., headquarters, where members of the intelligence committees are allowed only to review them. The agency is reviewing the bipartisan request, from Pelosi and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), currently the ranking member of the House intelligence committee, to release the detailed summaries of that particular briefing. Republicans have accused Pelosi of having full knowledge of the use of waterboarding and of tacitly supporting the program, noting that she never lodged any protest with the CIA about the issue or registered any complaint with Bush White House officials. Hoekstra, at a press briefing after Pelosi's remarks, suggested that every classified briefing he has been a part of ended with intelligence officials asking lawmakers, "Are we OK to move forward on this?" Last month President Obama released Bush-era Justice Department documents that provided the legal basis for the use of waterboarding and other harsh tactics on detainees, in interrogations that took place in so-called "dark sites" overseas. After the release of the legal memos Pelosi joined other Democrats in calling for a "truth commission" to investigate those legal memos authorizing tactics that critics have said was torture, outlawed by international treaties. Obama has rejected calls for such a commission, saying it would become a highly politicized issue that would do little to enhance public knowledge. However, the Senate Intelligence Committee is conducting a broad review of the interrogation techniques. Under pressure from Republicans to address when she learned of waterboarding, Pelosi for several weeks has insisted she was never briefed on the use of waterboarding. She did not point out that in December 2007 she issued a little-noticed statement that said she became aware of waterboarding in February 2003, when she left the intelligence committee to become House minority leader and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) succeeded her on the panel. Harman was briefed Feb. 5, 2003 about the use of waterboarding and told that tapes existed of the waterboarding of one detainee. As the Washington Post reported Saturday, Pelosi's top aide on intelligence matters also attended the Harman briefing, a fact that Pelosi omitted from her statements on the issue for the past several years. Today she acknowledged that her aide, Michael Sheehy, subsequently told her about the waterboarding interrogations. It's unclear if at that time Pelosi also learned that the detainee, Abu Zubaida, had been subjected to the harsh interrogation tactics before her September briefing. She deflected criticism from Republicans that she did not object to waterboarding by suggesting that she supported Harman. who wrote a letter to the CIA general counsel questioning the techniques and whether President Bush knew of their use. "That is the proper person to send the letter," Pelosi said, explaining that she was then the House minority leader and was not the "appropriate" person to object to the technique. "My job was to change the majority in Congress and to change -- to fight to have a new president, because what was happening was not consistent with our values. ... Something that had to be changed. We did that. We have a new president," she said.
The sound of dirty laundry being swept under the carpet. Pardon my mixed metaphors. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ca...nimously_back_pel.html?wprss=capitol-briefing Democrats Unanimously Back Pelosi By Paul Kane A unanimous bloc of House Democrats voiced their support today for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, rejecting a Republican resolution calling for an investigation into the California Democrat's assertion the CIA misled her about the nature of terrorist interrogations in 2002. By a vote of 252 to 172, the House rejected the resolution. All 250 Democrats who cast votes supported Pelosi, joined by two Republicans, Reps. Walter Jones Jr. (N.C.) and Ron Paul (Texas). The GOP resolution would have created a subcommittee within the House intelligence committee to probe the speaker's assertion last week that the CIA told her at a September 2002 briefing that the controversial technique of waterboarding was not used yet on a high value al-Qaeda prisoner. Later, government reports showed that some form of waterboarding had been used 83 times on one detainee in the weeks before the Pelosi briefing. "The Speaker is the second in line for the presidency, and the weight of the allegations against America's top foreign intelligence agency makes this bipartisan investigation necessary," House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said. Instead of backing the resolution, Democrats used it as an opportunity to show their united loyalty to the woman who led them to the majority in 2006 and expanded that edge in the 2008 elections. The Democratic caucus, which had 203 members on the eve of the 2006 elections, now stands at 256 members.
I was wrong about this, it's a bigger issue than I thought, and entirely because Pelosi chose to make it a bigger issue. Not clear to me whether she is being clueless or has some motive for doing so, but her actions have kept it in the spotlight. I still expect it will be forgotten in the long run, but it has gotten more play than I expected. barfo
Yep, she can't get out of her own way. Getting out of Dodge to meet with the Chi-coms was the best thing she could do for herself.
