• CIA,  Nancy Pelosi,  Newt Gingrich

    Newt Gingrich: Speaker Nancy Pelosi LIED to the House About Waterboarding – Inquiry Warranted

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    Political Cartoon by Michael Ramirez

    Why, of course House Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi LIED about CIA enhanced interrogation techniques and the briefings that made her complicit in waterboarding.

    And, former Speaker Newt Gingrich is RIGHT in calling Pelosi out on her deception.

    Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich today offered a blistering critique of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s handling of oversight on harsh interrogation tactics, in a major escalation of partisan attacks being aimed at Pelosi.

    In an interview with ABC News Radio’s Marcus Wilson, Gingrich, R-Ga., said Pelosi, D-Calif., “has lied to the House” in claiming that she was never briefed by the CIA about the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding and other harsh tactics.

    “I think she has lied to the House, and I think that the House has an absolute obligation to open an inquiry, and I hope there will be a resolution to investigate her. And I think this is a big deal.  I don’t think the Speaker of the House can lie to the country on national security matters,” Gingrich said.

    He continued: “I think this is the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

    “She is a trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the narrowist of purposes, and she dishonors the Congress by her behavior.”

    “Speaker Pelosi’s the big loser, because she either comes across as incompetent, or dishonest.  Those are the only two defenses,” Gingrich said. “The fact is she either didn’t do her job, or she did do her job and she’s now afraid to tell the truth.”

    Let’s bring on the CIA Wateboarding “truth commission” and place Speaker Pelosi under oath and on television. Americans deserve an explanation.

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  • Barack Obama,  CIA,  Day By Day,  Nancy Pelosi

    Day By Day by Chris Muir May 15, 2009 – Adult Children

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    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    House Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi has CLEARLY LIED about her involvement and complicity in CIA enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding.

    Now, is the time for complete Congressional hearings and the release of ALL CIA documents regarding the flap.

    Do I think it will happen?

    Nope and Obama is regretting the day he released the CIA memos to bash Bush and Cheney in the first place. Remember his own CIA Director Leon Panetta recommended against it.

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    The Day By Day Archive


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  • CIA,  Nancy Pelosi

    Nancy Pelosi: CIA LIED and Mislead Congress on Waterboarding

    ramireztoon051309

    Political Cartoon by Michael Ramirez

    The House Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi story regading CIA enhanced interrogation techniques and waterboarding is changing again with a morning news conference.

    Under fire from Republicans for what she knew about harsh questioning of terror detainees, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday acknowledged that she had learned as early as 2003 that the C.I.A. had subjected suspects to waterboarding.

    At a tense press conference, Ms. Pelosi said for the first time that a staff member alerted her in February 2003 that top lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee had been briefed on the use of tough interrogation methods on terror suspects.

    But she said the fact that she did not speak out at the time due to secrecy rules did not make her complicit in any abuse of detainees. She accused the C.I.A. and Bush administration of lying to Congress about what was actually transpiring with the detainees.

    “I am saying that the C.I.A. was misleading the Congress and at the same the administration was misleading the Congress on weapons of mass destruction,” Ms. Pelosi said.

    Republicans immediately took issue with the speaker’s comments, saying that she was in essence blaming the intelligence professionals for misleading her.

    “The speaker’s comments continue to raise more questions than provide answers,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader.

    He added, in comments broadcast on television: “It’s pretty clear that they were well aware of what these enhanced interrogation techniques were; they were well aware that they’d been used; and it seems to me that they want to have it both ways.”

    “You can’t have it both ways.”

    Speaker Pelosi says she wants a “truth commission” to investigate this matter.

    Pelosi renewed her call for a so-called truth commission to investigate the events in the Bush administration that led to the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques. While President Barack Obama has banned waterboarding, calling it torture, he has been notably cool toward an independent inquiry that might distract attention from his domestic agenda.

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also has expressed opposition, as have congressional Republicans.

    Well, it is obvious that somebody is lying here and the American pulbic deserves some accountability.

    I say have a Congressional investigation, place everyone under oath, on television and let’s sweat some truth out of these folks.

    Here is the video from this morning:

    Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy


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  • CIA,  Jane Harman,  Nancy Pelosi,  Peter Hoekstra

    Speaker Nancy Pelosi Changes Story on Waterboarding and CIA Enhanced Interrogation

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    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrat Represenative Jane Harman each received briefings on interrogation techniques used on Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah.

    Flap thought Speaker Nancy Pelosi denied she was EVER informed that waterboarding and other CIA enhanced techniques were used?

    Judging by Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress who were informed at the time, the answer seems to be yes. In December 2007, after a report in The Post that she had knowledge of these procedures and did not object, she admitted that she’d been “briefed on interrogation techniques the administration was considering using in the future.”

    Today Pelosi protests “we were not — I repeat — were not told that waterboarding or any other of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used.” She imagines that this distinction between past and present, Clintonian in its parsing, is exonerating.

    On the contrary. It is self-indicting. If you are told about torture that has already occurred, you might justify silence on the grounds that what’s done is done and you are simply being used in a post-facto exercise to cover the CIA’s rear end. The time to protest torture, if you really are as outraged as you now pretend to be, is when the CIA tells you what it is planning to do “in the future.”

    But Pelosi did nothing. No protest. No move to cut off funding. No letter to the president or the CIA chief or anyone else saying “Don’t do it.”

    Now, Speaker Pelosi’s story is changing again or should Flap say the story is being parsed.

    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 confidant of the San Francisco Democrat said Monday.

    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.

    The fact is Nancy Pelosi did NOTHING about waterboarding. She did NOT sign Congresswoman’s Jane Harman’s letter. Hell, she didn’t even LEAK it to the Washington Post. So, now why is the Speaker so outraged at enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA when she was in fact at least partially complicit by her inaction?

    As Republican Congressman Peter Hoekstra (the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee) said:

    “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?”

    As I have said before, lets have the Obama Administration and CIA release all of the documents and have open, public, televised Congressional Hearings. The American people deserve the truth, not Obama Administration spin and stonewalling.

    Put Speaker Pelosi under oath, the lights, on television and ask her the questions about what she knew and when she knew about the CIA enhanced interrogation techniques. Ask her why she is so outraged today after the fact while she wouldn’t even sign Harman’s letter?

    Enough of the BAD lies and deception. Congressional hearings – let’s go.

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    Former Senator Bob Graham: I Don’t Have Recollection of Being Briefed on Waterboarding

    What Did Speaker Nancy Pelosi Know and When Did She Know it? Re: CIA Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and Waterboarding

    Nancy Pelosi on CIA Torture? – NO. Except…

    Waterboarding: What Did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Know and When Did She Know It?


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  • Barack Obama,  CIA,  Nancy Pelosi,  Peter Hoekstra

    What Did Speaker Nancy Pelosi Know and When Did She Know it? Re: CIA Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and Waterboarding

    The CIA confirms that Nancy Pelosi was briefed on Enhanced Interrogation Techniques in 2002.

    When President Obama first released the CIA memos about waterboarding and other CIA enhanced interrogation techniques to blame the Bush Administration for “TORTURE,” I relished the thought of Congressional hearings so the true story would come out.

    Now, with the latest revelations, GOP Congressman Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee is asking for the release of more CIA documents (like Vice President Cheney already has) and is considering calling for Congressional hearings on the matter.

    Open public Congressional Hearings and placing Speaker Pelosi under oath to answer questions would be a good idea.

    Want to bet President Obama now regrets placing his fellow Democrats in political peril and the whole “TORTURE FLAP” dies a quiet death?


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  • Barack Obama,  CIA,  Nancy Pelosi

    Nancy Pelosi on CIA Torture? – NO. Except…

    ramireztoon042709

    Political Cartoon by Michael Ramirez

    What did Democrat Speaker of the House know about CIA Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and when did she know it?

    It is unclear from her public pronouncements.

    Judging by Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress who were informed at the time, the answer seems to be yes. In December 2007, after a report in The Post that she had knowledge of these procedures and did not object, she admitted that she’d been “briefed on interrogation techniques the administration was considering using in the future.”

    Today Pelosi protests “we were not — I repeat — were not told that waterboarding or any other of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used.” She imagines that this distinction between past and present, Clintonian in its parsing, is exonerating.

    On the contrary. It is self-indicting. If you are told about torture that has already occurred, you might justify silence on the grounds that what’s done is done and you are simply being used in a post-facto exercise to cover the CIA’s rear end. The time to protest torture, if you really are as outraged as you now pretend to be, is when the CIA tells you what it is planning to do “in the future.”

    But Pelosi did nothing. No protest. No move to cut off funding. No letter to the president or the CIA chief or anyone else saying “Don’t do it.”

    On the contrary, notes Porter Goss, then chairman of the House intelligence committee: The members briefed on these techniques did not just refrain from objecting, “on a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.”

    More support, mind you. Which makes the current spectacle of self-righteous condemnation not just cowardly but hollow. It is one thing to have disagreed at the time and said so. It is utterly contemptible, however, to have been silent then and to rise now “on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009” (the words are Blair’s) to excoriate those who kept us safe these harrowing last eight years.

    There is little doubt that the evidence clearly indicates Speaker Pelosi and other high ranking Democrats in supporting the CIA and its enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding against high value Al Qaeda detainees.

    Why do they continue to LIE?

    And, why President Obama will never support a “Truth Commission” to have public hearings regarding the CIA, Enhanced Techniques and Waterboarding in particular.

    Political cowardice and self-preservation.


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  • Barack Obama,  CIA,  Polling

    Poll Watch: Majority Say CIA Harsh Interrogations Justified

    Yet, a slim majority also say that they favor a government investigation into the use of harsh interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects.

    A new Gallup Poll finds 51% of Americans in favor and 42% opposed to an investigation into the use of harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects during the Bush administration. At the same time, 55% of Americans believe in retrospect that the use of the interrogation techniques was justified, while only 36% say it was not. Notably, a majority of those following the news about this matter “very closely” oppose an investigation and think the methods were justified.

    The fact is that President Obama has NOT declassified all of the CIA memos that describe the CIA enhanced interrogation techniques and their success, if any.

    Obviously, the Left’s and President’s argument that the techniques were not justified has not been accepted by a majority of Americans.


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  • CIA,  Nancy Pelosi

    Waterboarding: What Did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Know and When Did She Know It?

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    Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefed on waterboarding or an enhanced interrogation technique in 2002.

    Nancy Pelosi denies knowing U.S. officials used waterboarding — but GOP operatives are pointing to a 2007 Washington Post story which describes an hour-ong 2002 briefing in which Pelosi was told about enhanced interrogation techniques in graphic detail.

    Two unnamed officials told the paper that Pelosi, then a member of the Democratic minority, didn’t raise substantial objections.

    Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen wrote:

    In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

    Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

    But, Speaker Pelosi today denied that she knew anything about waterboarding.

    Pelosi says she was briefed by Bush administration officials on the legal justification for using waterboarding — but that they never followed through on promises to inform her when they actually began using “enhanced” interrogation techniques

    “In that or any other briefing…we were not, and I repeat, we’re not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used. What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel … opinions that they could be used,” she told reporters today.

    Earlier, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) criticized Pelosi and other Democratic leaders for backing probes into the use of waterboarding — after failing to raise objections during briefings on its potential use.

    “Well, yesterday I saw a partial list of the number of members of the House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans, who were briefed on these interrogation methods and not a word was raised at the time, not one word,” Boehner told reporters at his weekly news availability.

    “And I think you’re going to hear more and more about the bigger picture here, that what — the war on terror after 9/11 was done in a bipartisan basis on lots of fronts. And that bigger story will be coming out,” he added.

    So, California Democrat Representative Nancy Pelosi WAS present in “classified” briefings regarding waterbboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques and did NOT raise any objection.

    Why?

    Because she was not able to discuss the classified material with her staff? Or, she was “hamstrung” by confidentiality requirements?

    Oh please!

    This sounds like a pretty lame excuse. She acquiesced in the use of enhanced interrogation techniques because she as were others scared of another attack on the United States. Pelosi looked the other way lest she be blamed for another homeland attack.

    Who is she trying to fool?


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