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Pelosi: Torture Protest Improper in '03
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi learned in early 2003 that the Bush administration was waterboarding terror detainees but didn't protest directly out of respect for "appropriate" legislative channels, a person familiar with the situation said Monday.
SILENT ON TORTURE -- Steve Elmendorf, who served as chief of staff to former Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), said that in 2003, coming so soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it would have been difficult politically for Pelosi to do more to protest interrogation techniques the Bush administration was using. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., walks with Israeli President Shimon Peres on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 5, 2009.
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh) The Pelosi camp's version of events is intended to answer two key questions posed by her critics: When, precisely, did she first learn about waterboarding? And why didn't she do more to stop it?
Pelosi has disputed a CIA document, released last week, that shows she was briefed in September 2002 on the "particular" interrogation techniques the United States had used on Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah. Pelosi has said she was told then only that the Bush administration was considering using certain techniques in the future - and that it had the legal authority to do so.
But there's no dispute that on Feb. 4, 2003 - five months after Pelosi's September meeting - CIA officials briefed Pelosi aide Michael Sheehy and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), then the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, on the specific techniques that had been used on Zubaydah - including waterboarding.
Harman was so alarmed by what she had heard, she drafted a short letter to the CIA's general counsel to express "profound" concerns with the tactic - going so far as to ask if waterboarding had been personally "approved by the president."
According to the Pelosi confidant, Sheehy told Pelosi about the briefing - and later informed Pelosi, the newly elected minority leader, that Harman was drafting a protest letter. Pelosi told Sheehy to tell Harman that she agreed with the letter, the Pelosi insider said. But she did not ask to be listed as a signatory on the letter, the source said, and there is no reference to her in it.
Pelosi and Harman, sometimes bitter rivals, have still not discussed the controversy since it broke three weeks ago, according to Democratic insiders.
Sheehy has not responded to several calls and e-mails seeking comment on what he told Pelosi during this period. But the Pelosi confidant - who spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity - insisted that Pelosi did all that she could have done.
"She felt that the appropriate response was the letter from Harman, because Jane was the one who was briefed," said the person. Pelosi "never got briefed on it personally, and when Harman got a ‘no response' from the CIA, there was nothing more that could be done."
Republicans aren't buying it.
"If Nancy was so concerned about the waterboarding, why did she let someone else write the letter?" asked Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on the intelligence committee. "If she was so upset, why did she let someone else raise objections?"
Hoekstra has asked the CIA for documents on its congressional briefings, and he told POLITICO Monday that he has made a request for e-mails from agency staffers detailing their interactions with Pelosi and other House and Senate members. Steve Elmendorf, who served as chief of staff to former Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), said that coming so soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it would have been difficult politically for Pelosi to do more to protest interrogation techniques the Bush administration was using.
"You have to remember, in the 2002 period, the whole atmospherics, it was all about scaring people every day," said Elmendorf. "People were legitimately concerned that we were going to be attacked again, and there was a constant drumbeat coming from the Bush administration of, ‘Bad things could happen, bad things could happen.' Nobody wants it to happen on their watch."
Republicans have found a rare avenue of attack against Pelosi over the waterboarding briefing, at a time when the speaker is ramming through paradigm-shifting legislative proposals on behalf of the Obama administration. That grilling is likely to continue today when the speaker returns from a grueling weekend trip to Baghdad.
Still, Democrats are rallying to the speaker - and questioning the accuracy of the CIA's description of its congressional briefings.
An aide to former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) took issue Monday with the entry for a Feb. 4, 2003, briefing in which a Rockefeller staffer was reportedly told "how the water board was used."
"We are not in a position to vouch for the accuracy of the document," a Rockefeller spokeswoman said. He "has repeatedly stated he was not told critical information that would have cast significant doubt on the program's legality and effectiveness."
Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time Pelosi was briefed, told The Washington Post's PlumLine blog that he wasn't told of waterboarding then, either - despite a Sept. 27, 2002, briefing entry indicating he was given details of Zubaydah's interrogation.
"I do not have any recollection of being briefed on waterboarding or other forms of extraordinary interrogation techniques, or Abu Zubaydah being subjected to them," said Graham, adding: "Something as unexpected and dramatic as that would be the kind of thing that you would normally expect to recall even years later."
Even so, Democratic insiders acknowledge that Pelosi has not handled the media furor surrounding the interrogation briefings - and what she was told and when - in a timely or aggressive manner.
"I don't know whether the story is overplayed or they're misjudging it," said a Democratic leadership aide. "I don't know, maybe they haven't been aggressive enough."
This aide added: "I think they're good at walking and chewing gum - that's not the problem. I don't think they recognized that this issue has the legs that it does."
- Posted in
42 Comments so far
Show AllI didn't know that there were proper and improper times for behaving in the morally right way, for upholding both ethical and legal norms of proper conduct.
That's probably what Eichmann thought, too, when he was managing the business of the death camps: "Not the proper moment, right now. This can wait, I'll deal with that when the war is over."
She should be indicted for holding Peres hand.
Biden and one half of Congress standing at Aipac rollcall. Verging on treason. Truly zionist lapdogs.
glen ford, I agree. In San Francisco we tryed to vote Nancy Piglosi out of office, but like most of our Congress, they are like a case of Herpes, one you get them they never go away. We can't stop trying to remove these scum bags. It's our country we have to fight for it.
"She should be indicted for holding Peres hand."
Not unless it was Pelosi that initiated the gesture. My guess is Peres was the one who grabbed her hand in a demonstration of control and possibly friendship.
Somehow, the fact that this little morality fable is being pushed by the Republicans, based on one of the (amazingly) few CIA "memos" that miraculously escaped their general purge of anything at all incriminating, seems to have escaped our collective notice.
Hello. CIA? What is it they do again?
Oh, yeah. They lie, cheat, and steal for a living.
Hello. Republicans? What is it they do again?
Oh, yeah. They lie, cheat, and steal for a living.
What would we expect *either* of them to say, and so "earnestly" too.
We all know about the importance of being earnest.
I personally wouldn't believe anything either outfit said if it were written on gold tablets and co-signed by Moses. Indeed, I'd expect exactly that from them.
Lioness
IF the truth of this is eventually that Pelosi in any way aided or abetted the
torture of prisoners -- or anyone -- then she should be held responsible along
with Bush/Cheney and their lawyer-liars.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
A handful of republicans -out of power and in the minority- can hammer away at, and start to undermine, the Speaker Pelosi for her complicity in knowing about torture that was initiated and continued by the same repukes when they were in power. But an entire house of democrats, while in power, bent over and took whatever Bush/Cheney shoved at them, no complaints. Pathetic, I hope Pelosi is the Queen of hearts that finally collapses the house of cards. Ironic that it's the tenacious repukes that may enable it. Pelosi falls while Cheney slumbers off into obscurity, with no accountability. Serves her right should it happen.
Another poor piece of journalism by Politico. The most damning statement Ithe second line in the story), "that coming so soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it would have been difficult politically for Pelosi to do more to protest interrogation techniques the Bush administration was using" was made by Steve Elmendorf, former chief of staff for Dick Gebhardt, who had no direct involvement or knowledge of the situation. His statement was basically his own impressions, put into the story to bolster a weak attack on Pelosi.
Pelosi is an embarrassment to all real progressive people who live in San Francisco. I think people really don't understand what San Francisco is like today. We are not the idealized liberal city that once was. We are an expensive, right of center town, who prefer to shop than spend much time working for the homeless, we are more intertested in organic food than organic human beings and support the wars as long as the right of center President is killing the folks with endless bombing raids in other places. The San Francisco of the past where music, art, politics and just causes existed, no longer exist. We all pretend to care but we really only care about ourselves. Yeppers we all wear blue jeans, you really can't wear anything else if you did you would be looked down upon, remember in San Francisco the greatest crime is looking like you are from Los Angles. Because we are all so hip, enlighted, peaceful, educated and liberal - well that is the act we project!
"Pelosi is an embarrassment to all real progressive people who live in San Francisco."
-- Actually, you are being too kind.
Pelosi is a disgrace to the people of the nation. It was she who said, "Impeachment is off the table!" and who did not speak out against torture and who is now advising Democrats not to support Single Payer Health care.
Her actions as a an elected official are destroying what is left of democracy in our nation. The people want an end to the wars, prosecution of the Bush administration for war crimes and not upholding our Constitution. The people want a health care system that is not run by the for profit insurance corporations. The people want their representatives to represent the people and not to vote to maximise the profits of the corporations at every chance they get.
The strangle hold the wealthy elite have on our goverment is largely due to the fact that we only allow two political parties (which are controlled by the same interests). We must change our political system to hear other points of view. Lots of people in this nation do not believe that making money is the primary value in our nation. There are higher values than profit. (but not with Nancy Pelosi)
Surprise! Surprise!
Now we know why prosecution for torture was 'off the table' in 2006 & 2008 statements.
She would have to have brought up charges against herself.
Remember the form letters DEM. congresspersons sent stating that there was NO BASIS or proof that warranted impeachment proceedings = no laws were broken.
We DO TORTURE and brag about it as a country.
Actually, this is all old news. We were all told this over a year ago. Why is it becoming news now? The Dims didn't want the Repugs to be prosecuted, because their own complicity would see the light of day.
Yes, the apologist always trot out the "it's old news" meme.
IT'S NOT OLD NEWS UNTIL THE PROSECUTIONS HAVE ENDED AND JUSTICE SERVED.
but of course the Republicans are blameless.
them nasty Democrats should've put a stop to it as soon as they knew about it.
Time for this bitch to go.
"Greed works." - Gordon Gekko
"Cowardice works." - Nancy Pelosi
I agree with abendland & katyc8 above, that the lack of courage and judgment in a time of crisis and need, displays an unacceptable incompetence of leadership. Nancy Pelosi is unique to me, in that she has driven me away from the Democratic Party. For the first time in my life I had to seek other candidates because after the 2006 election it was obvious that the Pelosi's dedication to the Constitution was no greater than that of the Bush administration. To nicholas101, there was no sadder defeat in the November election than that of Cindy Sheehan. These new memos do nothing but confirm what was already quite apparent.
I will write my congressman or woman, as it turns out, that she should demand new leadership in the House. That Ms. Pelosi needs to step down. She has lacked judgment in a time of need, she has not enforced the Constitution against an administration that was completely out of line, and she has not been forthright and honest with the American people.
We've heard a lot about honesty and change. Political courage seems absent from our contemporary discussion. The story of Nancy Pelosi might best be told in a book called "Profiles in Timidity".
Bring America Back !!!!........This is great information from Politico !!
****Now you know why Prez Obama wants to "look forward" , not 'backwards'
because when we look back there, we see His favorite Democrats right in there
enabling all of the Bush war crimes. So how do you prosecute Bush without
involving his enablers like Pelosi and Harman, and Clinton =Sec/State ??
****Jay Rockefeller's staffer is an outright Liar==Rockefeller is one of the very few Democrats who Voted FOR Bush's 'Military Commissions Act', the law
which authorizes torture, and the Kangaroo Courts of Gitmo, as well. Other so called Demmys were Joe Lieberman,and former astronaut Senator Bill Nelson-D=Florida; they voted for Bush' torture legislation as well !! They can hardly claim not to know anything about The Law they voted FOR !!!!
****While still a Senator, Barak Obama voted FOR the FISA Immunity legislation
forgiving Bush & company, and Guilty Telecons for felony and criminal wiretapping of American citizens on a massive basis. We better believe that our usual Democratic Suspects were right in there with knowledge of what the NSA and King George were doing==and enabled those crimes as well !!
****So Obama set his precedent for caving in to the Big Money and the DC culture of corruption way before he took the Oath of Office. !!
While Politico does not offer us much new, we should take the opportunity to recall that these problems did Not begin with torture, they all began pre or post Sept 11, 2001. The Torture programs were methods to create waterboarded or electrocuted Patsies who would then admit to anything, including so called masterminding 9/11 !!! That's how we have the Islamic chauffeur and the 19th Hijacker admitting to all of it, and begging for heroic martyrdom, to boot .
Patsies !!!! Cover-up fall guys to conceal the real Truth of 9/11 !!
^A heartfelt 'thank you' for your post. It is good to see not everyone swallows the present or past administrations false implications regarding terrorism. Though I've been aware for years 9/11 was just a false-flag set-up, not until recently did I make the connection that these so called 'terrorists' both administrations have been torturing were only being tortured so that Bush, Obama and company could laugh in our faces and tell us that there is such a thing as terrorism; sure there is, that's because both administrations are making patsies out of them. And I suppose that they're poor brown people doesn't hurt matters either. Imagine that, torturing people because they MAY OR MAY NOT have some information of use. Killing people by drone attacks simply because we feel it is their time to die, they are less than human and they are unworthy of having a trial to determine their innocence.
The USA = The world's #1 Terrorist.
gotta love that photo though and the caption "Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., walks with Israeli President Shimon Peres".
Is there a particular implication or reason that this photo might be shown to accompany this article?
Maybe because torture was justified for and used exclusively against islamic peoples? or that torture justified by 9/11 for which islamic people were innocent?
Only dumb Democrats attack their own leaders.
The information Pelosi received was classified. She would have been breaking the law to talk about it.
Xe Technology: To Purify America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zYqMkgzOJ0
"Only dumb Democrats attack their own leaders."
How do you expect to change the behavior of the Democrats without criticizing them?
"The information Pelosi received was classified. She would have been breaking the law to talk about it."
Pelosi was fully within her rights to reveal the information. Under Executive Order 12356, information may not be classified in order to conceal illegal activity or to avoid political embarrassment:
"Sec. 1.6 Limitations on Classification.
(a) In no case shall information be classified in order to conceal
violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; to prevent
embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency; to restrain
competition; or to prevent or delay the release of information that does
not require protection in the interest of national security."
Honest Democrats will stand up for justice and against illegality,
no matter who is aiding or abetting the crime - even another Democrat.
Those pushing torture were "breaking the law" and Pelosi doesn't have
to be a lawyer to understand that. Pelosi had a responsibility FIRST
to the Constitution and the people. The Constitution says, "NO cruel
or unusual punishment."
Miliary law says "no torture."
Geneva Accords - "no torture."
Support law -- not party!
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
There really isn'tany excuse for her behavior. If these people really knew history (Geneva Conventions and treaties signed against tortrue) and really know the constitution... then they would not have allowed any of what has occurred during the Bush admin...They are probably too caught up in dressing up and going out for a night of fine dining and living the good life. You can't tell me that making the salary they make isn't the good life, especially with the health insurance they get...
Instead of whooshing off to parties etc... maybe they should be boning up on their reading and actually doing their job...
Excellent points: these Washington politicos are ignoramuses of the first order.
They should all have to go to remedial Constitutional Law and International Law and Treaties school. Until they pass a tough examination on these matters, they should not be allowed to attend a single party.
So politics trumps morality?
Thanks, Bitch. You have demonstrated your contempt for the law, and now for the American people. Time to leave!
Mike Corbeil
I don't see you on this sight yet... But I'd like to thank you for noting my excessive use of capitals letters... yeah, I've been getting carried away... When I first started to comment, I read some post that chided others for doing the capitalizing thing...
I just feel unheard... I mean, everyday we see the most horrendous events and behaviors go on and nothing is done about it... corporations, gov officials, individual business persons, committing the worse...
Mother Earth is screaming ... she is weeping and our souls are beginning to react... some are loosing thiers... others are in such pain it is becoming difficult to function.
I do try to look at some of the positives, like when Obama was elected. But I'm still not seeing what I was expecting....
I still hope he helps us heal helps us fix what's broken and reform-revolutionize our sick culture...
But,
It's true, we are who we were waiting for.... But so far not many of us realize this... we are not responding to important issues- it is as if we are sheeple....
We need to make our voices heard even louder. We need to be ready to sacrifice our material luxuries and stand up for what we believe...
I do not want to take away from those out there who are trying, who are standing up... but we are a nation of supposedly free peoples, we should be able to use that for more than going to the mall....
The so-called "liberal" cities have no business telling others that their votes for pols other than Democrats are "dumb". SF is itself hypocritical for overwhelmingly choosing a pro-war pro-corporatist pro-status-quo PeeLOWSick over a real solid open heart progressive Cindy Sheehan. San Francisco is NOT liberal as it claims to be !
Do you vote on electronic voting machines?
That may be the answer --
These machines began coming in -- the large ones used by MSM in the early 1960's -
and those used by voters in the late 1960's.
Coincidentally, just about the time America passed The Voting Rights Act-!
Personally, I question every election back to Nixon/Humphrey-!
Since then America has made little sense -- and our corporate-medica continues
to ignore our 50 years of political assassinations.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Where's Robespierre when we really need him?
"Dumb Democrats" is an oxymoron. Their "leaders" are the barrier standing in opposition between humanity and justice.
Pelosi's only excuse that "good Nazi's keep silent because it's the law" is as repugnant as the acts she covered for.
Work to help others avoid narrow mindedness.
Would you like paper or plastic?
Would you prefer democrat or republican?
Syphilis or Gonorrhea?
How about none of the above? There are several political parties in this country that would be just fine if we could break the stranglehold of the mythical "two-party system."
It is entirely possible that Pelosi was set up by the CIA. Certainly stranger things have happened.
That said, she showed her true colors and loyalty by taking impeachment off the table. She enabled and condoned the crimes of Bush & Co.
-‘Pelosi told Sheehy to tell Harman that she agreed with the letter, the Pelosi insider said. But she did not ask to be listed as a signatory on the letter, the source said, and there is no reference to her in it.”
-‘there was nothing more that could be done."
You have got to be kidding! An anonymous “insider” says Democratic leader Pelosi really, really opposed torture, it’s just that, well, she was waiting for a, well, safer time to raise objections.
-“You have to remember, in the 2002 period, the whole atmospherics, it was all about scaring people every day”
Yes, it is unfortunate that the Bush crimes didn’t happen during a happy-go-lucky period of American history. That way, Pelosi would have felt it a safe enough environment for her to do her job.
Pelosi felt so strongly, says her anonymous defender, about what she learned, in real time, as the crimes were being executed, that she went so far as to NOT even send a “secret letter” to the CIA, as one of her colleagues did.
Wow.
Appropriate legislative channels--another term for sweeping evidence under the carpet.
"You have to remember, in the 2002 period, the whole atmospherics, it was all about scaring people every day:.
True. Pelosi did nothing to expose the fear-mongering of the Bush Administration because, simply, she herself stoops to precisely the same machinations.
people are dying left and right deprived of jobs, food, shelter and medical consideration due to the perpetual iron fist economy and how nice is knowing how brutality is rejected at all the for crowd facilities of the system's interrogation
The Bush administration has an "insurance policy" of sorts against being prosecuted for their many crimes, including institutionalizing torture. That protection is the naked complicity of Congressional Democratic leaders.
This Republican tactic of calling out that complicity seems to be working. Obama has already advised against prosecuting those who formulated the torture policy.
Loyalist Dem voters may see this focus on Pelosi as simply the Republican attack machine at work. While that's partly true, the issues here are greater than partisan squabbles.
The real question is why Democrats agree so much with the Republicans. Why do the Republican-initiated wars continue and flourish under the Democratic leadership? How can Democrats vote to suspend our rights and the rights of others protected by the Constitution if indeed they are upholders of Democratic Party values?
It's axiomatic that rights be protected in times of stress. Most students in U.S. high school civics classes get the message. Pelosi's embrace of the Bush team's fear excuse is just an admission of incompetence. But it's worse than that. The two parties agree on most things. They support plutocracy and the military industrial complex and bankers over people's interests.
That's the real lesson here for loyalist Dems. Sadly, I don't think they'll get it, nor remember the lesson come November. There are options.
-TIA
Please break yourself out of the left-right paradigm; it's quite unbecoming.
Judging from evidence of Pelosi's lack of integrity and courage such as "impeachment is off the table," it is easy to believe that she knew exactly what tortures were being done to those prisoners. She and the rest of the liars and whores who make up Congress will say and do anything to protect their little empires.