Pelosi’s Advisory On Abu Zubaydah And Torture
As Marcy noted back on April 29th, the issue of Nancy Pelosi’s briefing back in 2002 on the Bush/Cheney torture program, whether or not it was being applied to Abu Zubaydah and, if so, to what extent, has really turned into a he said-she said game. (See also here regarding the Porter Goss offensive against Pelosi and Harman).
So, it should not come as any surprise that yet another missive has been launched in this little passion play. Today’s strike comes courtesy of Rick Klein at ABC News:
ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah in September 2002, according to a report prepared by the Director of National Intelligence’s office and obtained by ABC News.
The report, submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee and other Capitol Hill officials Wednesday, appears to contradict Pelosi’s statement last month that she was never told about the use of waterboarding or other special interrogation tactics. Instead, she has said, she was told only that the Bush administration had legal opinions that would have supported the use of such techniques.
MadDog has slithered into the depths of Human Events.com to find what they claim is "the report". He has also given us a hand glossary for the abbreviations. The Washington Post seems to think it is "the report" as well, for what it is worth:
In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress briefed on the 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 anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Pelosi has already, of course, issued a denial through a spokesman. More he said-she said. Quite frankly, without more, today’s play should be taken with a grain of salt. Multiple major news organizations have this hot off the press info right after Congress receives it and right wing hit rag Human Events (Jed Babbin) is pitching it as a slam on Pelosi. How very convenient. As further evidence of the need for grains of salt listen to Leon Panetta in his own cover letter transmitted with "the report":
“This letter presents the most thorough information we have on dates, locations, and names of all Members of Congress who were briefed by the CIA on enhanced interrogation techniques. This information, however, is drawn from the past files of the CIA and represents [memorandums for the record] completed at the time and notes that summarized the best recollections of those individuals. In the end, you and the Committee will have to determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened. We can make the MFRs available at CIA for staff review.” (Emphasis added)
As should be crystal clear by now, "those individuals" that worked on the "past files of the CIA" "at the time" were not necessarily the most even handed and/or disinterested arbiters of the truth. The CIA has a big bone in this fight, and it rests completely in implicating Pelosi, Harman and other members of Congress in their bad acts.
Salt shakers required!
In a big way. I think this is a highly padded bit o’propaganda. Which is not to say Pelosi is off the hook, but this document is crap.
As bmaz notes, WaPo is already selling this as a big 10 page document. Not so much, 4 at best…
EPU’ed part 1 from the prior thread…
Man, talk about “elections have consequences”… Starting in March 2007 (i.e., after Dems regained control of Congress) they weren’t many “briefings”, instead there were a bevy of “hearings”.
MadDog, do you have any idea if the hearings listed were open to the public or were they classified/behind closed door hearings? If the former, then we can cross those off the list, since we know nothing of any substance was revealed in a public setting…
I would strongly doubt that any were anything but the most highly classified and us peons were never to know about them in the first place much less attend one of them.
Convenient that one side, with a huge stake in portraying the deal in a certain manner, gets to make and keep “contemporaneous notes, but the other does not. And keep in mind that Panetta has a house full of hornets over there right now at the CIA, it is in his interest to have Pelosi and Congress complicit and acquiescing in the torture program and of the AZ torture. Hard to trust any of these mopes.
This is one point that has to be rectified by legislation. How can the gang of 4 or 8 or whatever do any kind of oversight if they’re not allowed to take notes, and not allowed to talk with anyone about what they hear?
But I’m ok with throwing Pelosi under the bus. She deserves it for taking impeachment off the table.
Bob in HI
Just wondering if anyone else thinks the Democrats sat on their hands too long and now Repubs have developed an aggressive strategy to short-circuit any torture investigations?
Lamar Alexander gave a not-too-subtle hint to Eric Holder today threatening that if DOJ goes down the road of investigating torture, Dems in congress and even Clinton officials will be fair game. Meanwhile Dick Cheney takes to the airwaves and Nancy Pelosi’s gets the proverbial “horse head in the bed”, as well.
Seems to me like a well organized Republican push back that wouln’t have been possible if the Dems had taken the lead on investigating torture instead of equivocating endlessly on what they were going to do about it.
This has been so all along. The only difference now is that a lot of facts have come out (especially the torture memos, thanks to Obama for releasing them, whatever else you say about him) and the Dems are in control, so the pressure to do something is much greater than under W.
Who knows how real that threat is? Could just be the rethugs thrashing around, hoping to hit something. In any case, a special prosecutor is the way to go, IMHO. Let the chips fall where they may!
Let them investigate Dems in Congress and the Clinton era. If they are dirty, burn them too. I am all for that, the Dems and Clintons SHOULD be treated no differently. This is not a partisan deal, it is justice and should be blind in its application.
Right! Crimes are crimes. They are not policy differences.
I think their strategy has been something like that, or to be exact that they have tried to create an equivalency between things that they (Bush/GOP people when they were in executive or congressional power) did and things that Dems did or seem to have done alongside them. The Bush folk want to use that “equivalency” to bind the Dems to them.
I think this strategy is beginning to crumble for what should have been the obvious flaw that regardless of what responsibility the Dems do share for the torture and rendition policy, their guilt is magnitudes less than those who crafted it, monitored it, controlled information about it, and carried it out. When the shit truly begins to stink, it’s much easier to step out of your dirty shoes, even if everyone knows your footprint trail, than to pretend you weren’t just laid out and wallowing in the pit a moment ago.
The Holder questioning at SJC could be seen as yet more mortar crumbling. From RawStory:
So this point seems unlikely to become an obstruction, as I think the GOP senators were counting on.
I hope you’re right.
I totally agree that it’s a lame and cowardly strategy and I hope it doesn’t deter real investigations. But the Repubs are giving the press the “he said/she said” meme that they love.
If the Dems don’t break through that chatter w/something more substantial, the story will just be more beltway blather to most of the public. Any actual convictions will be minimized by being cast as politically motivated.
Except to those who have had a friend, family member, or community member at greater risk in Iraq while doing service in the military — those people are not going to forget about this, nor are they very likely to be snowed by GOP bullshit. Some may be snowed for awhile, sure. But not all (not by a long shot).
You make an excellent point, Tross.
Thanks. Been learning from you guys.
Yes, and no.
These guys in the GOP have a long history of bullying, and trying to intimidate. (For the best-ever description of how prevalent and long-lasting this behavior is, as well as its psychological roots, see John Dean’s excellent “Conservatives Without Conscience”.) Assuming that Lamar is something of an authoritarian like so many in the GOP, anything that he perceives as a ‘threat’ to his presumed leader — even Bush, even Cheney — is in his mind a threat to **himself personally.** So it’s not at all surprising to see such a strong reaction.
FWIW, it’s been my experience that if you keep paying out rope, an asshole will (proverbially) hang themselves every single time. It takes awhile, but they always overreach.
The fact that they’re in such intense pushback mode is a symptom of their levels of fear. Liz Cheney nearly melted on teevee a week or two ago, and look at Condi’s reactions in the past week.
These people are getting scared shitless, IMHO.
They’re counting on the Dems and Obama to be complicit, and they’ll do whatever they can to cut deals, threaten, bully, smear, and given the fact that they realize photos will be released in a few weeks and Zelikow is to go before Congress next week, if they aren’t flipped out and terrified, then they’d have to be brain dead.
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving lot.
I just wrote a diary on Oxdown with the very same info. LOL. I didn’t, however, have the Panetta memo.
And these days, ABC as the lead reporter requires a dark soy marinade for me.
Excerpts from page 54, Crossing the Rubicon, by Mike Ruppert:
snip>
snip>
Ooo, semi-public indeed, I almost remember some outcroppings of that, from some weird monkey-wrenches that got thrown into the ABC/CapCities merger. (I’ve been a back-to-front, bottom-to-top newspaper reader for a long time.)
But on ABC, just the last few years, or is it months, of rising bogosity would be enough to keep them out of my stockpot.
I have several books on the CIA, and can’t pin the following line down to which one it is in. (it’s after midnight – tired, etc). That line is that there are 2 requirements for any covert operation: (1) plausible denyability (sp?) and (2) a scapegoat.
Interesting.
We’ve had more than our fair share of both.
I think that info on the 2 requirements for any covert operation by CIA is in my book, The Secret Team, by L. Fletcher Prouty. He was the original ‘briefer’ who was go-between the CIA and the directors of the other executive agencies. His own personal story is fascinating. For those who do not know of him, just Google: The Secret Team and read the Preface. The entire 400+ pages are online. The CIA is not and never was what the propaganda sells it as.
I’m no fan of Pelosi after she took impeachment off the table. She’s in a battle of wits and intrigue now like never before. Historically the CIA does not tolerate those who might reveal their dark secrets.
ROTL, are you familiar with this author and his 2 main books?
If the claim SHOULD be substantiated, I have no doubt the wingnuts will be howling for Pelosi’s head, while maintaining that the authors and practitioners of the torture policy should be let off scot-free.
well, that makes no sense whatsoever, so – yeah, you’re probably right.
Hey bmaz, I know EW gave you the keys to the liquor cabinet, but did she leave you the keys to posting PDFs here?
I’m thinking it would be better if we had our own copy of the report rather than driving traffic over at that wingnut’s site.
Just a thought.
And perhaps we shouldn’t post it here since we have no way of vetting the reliability of the document.
Second thoughts. *g*
Eh, I would, but this has already crossposted at FDL and it buggers things up if I make alterations while the crosspost is live. (But Marcy is a real silly girl; she gave me a full set of keys. Pretty negligent!).
No problemo!
From page 10 of the report, is the name of one Brian Morrison who is listed as one of the “staff” at the last briefing listed on 3/12/09.
Per this link, here’s some info on Brian Morrison:
(My Bold)
Ain’t this dangerous for the people out for Pelosi? She has nothing to lose now by speaking the truth.
I know we all here in the blogosphere peanut gallery love to blithely dive in and analyze the heck out of these documents, but I’d like to make the point that there appears a real fookin’ war going on in DC about this whole topic, and that we only get to see the explosions from afar.
Makes ya’ wonder who’s winning. *g*
That is right. There is a lot of this stuff that I think we are starting to get a decent grasp on, but on how it all fits in with Congress, I do not think that is necessarily the case.
And just in case folks aren’t yet convinced this was a deliberate strategy and deliberately leaked by Repugs, take a gander at this from April 24 from the Official Repug Propaganda Organ, Faux News:
A deliberate Repug hitjob? Who could ever think that?
“I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked.”
LOL!
You are channeling
bmazCaptain Renault? *g*And more evidence to buttress my case (as if it’s needed *g*), the Moonie Times says this:
(My Bold)
Got to hand it to the Repug message machine. Even in the wilderness, they still keep it oiled up and running like a chainsaw.
RIght on, MadDog. My sense is that DC knows the blame will land somewhere, and everybody involved is scrambling like hell to get out of the way, and/or pin it on somebody else.
I wonder. Look closely at the clip from last Feb., where she is talking about how these techniques were not described as something that was being used. To me, she looks extremely nervous, under the smile. And of course, even if her statement is true, John Turley points out in today’s interview that this is a very weak defense–if e.g. the government told you, and you were in a position to influence it, that it was legal to murder people, and you didn’t at least protest loudly and publicly, you’d be complicit, I’d think.
Special prosecutor, that’s what’s needed. If Nancy is guilty of something, so be it. Let’s have somebody with no personal interest investigate and see what turns up. Laws, not men (or women )!
We’ve tortured internationally
Let’s be judged internationally
What’s good enough for the Germans is good enough for the bush clan and their legacy.
That would be an International War Crimes Tribunal
Tom Freeman can’t remain a free man! Traitor.
TREASON is never a mistake but not calling it out as treason is always a mistake.
‘Did NancyP say she responded like CondoleezzaR had?’, one might ask; i.e., Well, gosh, yes, and, pleezze, student, do ya understand the ATOMsphere then?’
Working our way backward through the document…
EPU’ed from prior thread, part 2…
Five of the briefings were on Sept. 6, 2006 the same day that (from EW’s torture timeline…)
By then we can safely assume the WH shit has hit the Congressional fan. So, we have 4 pages of possibly incriminating briefings, rather than 10 (neglecting everything from Sept. 6, 2006 onward). Although I suppose it doesn’t hurt to point out that the Military Commissions Act was passed by the Senate on Sept. 28th, by the House on Sept. 29th, and signed into law by Bush on Oct. 17th. So, it’s safe to say the Congressional “fan” was of the delicate papery handheld variety.
Who can We Trust anymore?
Repubs and Dems? They’re both working for the Money Party.
It’s time for US to consider fielding a New Progressive Party.
Grass-Roots Support Only – No Lobbyists – Highest Possible Ethics
We can start running Candidates in 2010, and sweep the Nation by 2016.
The only People We can Trust are US.
To right. We should not blindly say that the dems are innocent. Let all the evidence be known, then let us see who shares the guilt. Then dem or rethug, let justice be done.
You are also 100% right that no politician can be trusted. Indeed, some of them-both parties- have done some very bad things while in congress. In fact several FedGov-black- agencies have documented proof(kind of like back in day when J Edgar blackmailed congress) and over the last 40 or so years have not been afraid to use it to get their way. Our govt is corrupt-not much better than the govt of say, Iraq, Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia and the old USSR politbureau-, the sooner that everyoe understands that, the better.
Dick’s involved in the past files of the CIA. I just know it somehow.
And finally EPU’ed from prior thread, part 3…
This is from EW’s timeline. Clicking through to the link from the timeline, there is evidence that the CIA lied to Congress. There is no February briefing on the list, so I’m guessing this HPSCI briefing would have been the one conducted on Jan. 25, 2005.
If the CIA was lying to Congress (in this case Hoekstra and Harman), why should we assume the previous briefings were truthful?
I have no love lost on Pelosi, but I smell a hit job in a big way here.
For Years when I think of nancy she embodies TREASON in the flesh. Is her husband a war profiteer like I’ve read?
I don’t trust Pelosi’s story.
It’s becoming very clear that both sides allowed this to horror to happen.
An independent prosecutor is absolutely essential now.
I’m busy working on a presentation for the day job, but I’d like to point out one really weird detail. Take a look at the legislators listed for the 03/08/05:
Pat Roberts
Jay Rockefeller
Porter Goss
Jane Harman
Something seems a little wrong with that list…. What could it be? Let me think… Oh yeah, in 2005, Porter Goss wasn’t in Congress. Seems like he had some position in the administration. What was that? Oh, I remember he was the head of one of those three letter agencies… the CIA.
Wait a minute… you mean these guys couldn’t even remember what Porter Goss was actually doing in 2005 when he was their boss. That gives me a whole lot of confidence in them and this document. Not.
Didn’t we know that Goss was involved in those briefings at that time period?
Again from EW’s timeline…
Continuing to step backwards through the CIA briefings document along with EW’s timeline, the CIA makes it sound as if Roberts and Rockefeller (and Goss and Harman) are fully briefed in mid-July, but as EW makes clear this is also the start of the ten month time period when Rockefeller was trying to get someone to address whether the OLC memos were consistent with the 5th, 8th, and 14th amendments.
Clearly, the CIA was getting some pushback here from Rockefeller. This is hardly the Congressional acquiescence being suggested by the purveyors of the briefing list.
And a wee bit more from the superb Siobhan Gorman at the WSJ:
(My Bold)
I’m guessing that “Democratic aide” being quoted is one and the same “Ms. Pelosi’s spokesman Brendan Daly”, but that’s just my swag. *g*
Which doesn’t match up with the Panetta “accompanying letter” story that was in the original info I grabbed from ABC News:
So we are now left with 6 briefings:
2 on Sept. 4, 2003 (one to Roberts and Rockefeller, the other to Goss and Harman)
2 on Feb. 4/5, 2003 (same pairs, although they note Rockefeller got an individual briefing later)
1 on Sept. 27, 2002 (Bob Graham and Richard Shelby)
1 on Sept. 4, 2002 (Pelosi and Goss)
In other words we are pretty much at the place we were before this document came to light. EW had pretty much sketched this out for us already. Unless we know specifically what was said in those briefings (and we don’t given this document) there is no way to settle the he said she said here.
The CIA is going to have to do a lot better than this.
And IIRC, that Sept 2002 timeframe the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) was meeting in earnest.
This really looks like a hit job — that was a ramp up to war and it’s entirely likely that one reason for ‘briefing’ these Congressional leaders was to imply that the US had captured some very badass people who (less than one year post-9/11) were deep into plans for immanent mayhem, thus we had to start ramping up to ‘take out Saddam and his WMD.’
In other words, the effect of briefing the Congressional leaders would have been to ramp up anxiety and fear levels — whether that was the intended outcome, or not.
My impression is that it is just more warning off Congress not to look to closely at who did what.
Guys, I’ve got the analysis here.
The CIA document is full of known holes. The SSCI Narrative shows it’s full of shit, and even Goss seems to argue it’s full of shit.
It’s a piece of shit CYA document. You can believe that–and believe hte smear on Pelosi, or you can see that they still aren’t even claiming they told Pelosi about waterboarding, and they are agreeing they didn’t tell anyone until after AZ was already waterboarded.
And see my # 44. Even the WaPo is calling bullshit now!
Right. But they appear not to notice that the document has verifiable problems.
And still no one is interested in the fact that CIA did’t brief until after AZ had been waterboarded.
Well, but that would undermine the shared responsibility meme, no?
And from about 4 minutes ago at the WaPo:
I guess the Congressional Democrats, after taking the first punch in the schnozz, finally got up off the floor and are hitting back.
muddy hte waters with squid ink so everybody is mentioned and the media,calls everyone complicit
What difference does it make if she was briefed. What could she do? Send a nasty letter. She is and was held in total and absolute contempt by anyone remotely involved from the White House to the JD to Hill. If she sent a complaint there would probably have been thousands of hours spent fantasizing about how they would like to torture her. There probably were anyway.
If she didn’t complain, so what? If she agreed or disagreed and was cowed into total acquiescence it means not a thing.
If she would have leaked it there would have been a shitstorm of monumental scale. Actually I think this is what those in the know on the Hill, like Rockefeller should have done. (He’s a real worthless empty suit) Still the leak of it would likely have been counter productive.
Her knowledge, I mean real direct admission of what was happening as opposed to what everybody was 99.9% sure was happening, is absolutely irrelevant. She was in no position to give permission. Any more than Bush or Bybee.
My thoughts exactly.
What actually happens at such a briefing? Is it a one-way information session? What can the Congressperson actually do here? If she objects, what impact does that have? It’s supposed to be a high level of confidentiality. So if she objected and was rebuffed in the hearing, who could she have told? What would that have led to?
These are not exactly rhetorical questions. What are the guidelines for a committee member who has a problem with what she hears? I guess she can write a letter for the record. She can ask the other members of the committee to convene. But less than a year after 9/11? What sort of traction would she get? Again, it seems to me she could get something down for the record, but I’m not sure who would be the keeper of this record.
Her blocking of the impeachment initiatives raises questions, but a person could genuinely believe this was not a productive avenue. This doesn’t prove she was just protecting herself.
I’m with BMAZ too. This is not a partisan issue now, this is about justice, about the US as a model in the world, about warning future administrations that they won’t get a pass. Guilty Dems should face the music as well as guilty Repubs.
So, in determining whether someone like Pelosi should be investigated, if in fact she had been told what was happening early on, I’d need to know:
What power did she have to affect what was going on?
(Sources like Charlie Wilson’s War suggest there’s the power of the purse potentially, but what else?)
Bingo. We have a winner.
Enjoy.
I don’t see anything fundamentally inconsistent with what Pelosi has said occurred and what the DNI report says. The report says in Sept. ‘02 Pelosi/Goss were briefed on Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT’s) used on Zubaydah, but it does not specify waterboarding. The briefing, and the DNI report, could be conveniently omitting this distinction. Otoh, you can’t be briefed on waterboarding being used and claim you were not briefed on EIT’s.
It is ‘he said she said’, but nothing has come out to definitively disprove what Pelosi has claimed about the timing of her knowledge, as far as I can tell.
One note:
Bob Graham quit not long after all this shit started. I remember saying to myself that he saw something that disgusted him and he was afraid to say anything, security clearance and all.
As it pertains here as well, see my comment #18 on the next thread.
The CIA faked a letter from the Minister of the Interior of Niger.
Faking internal memoranda is a SNAP compared to that.