Fred Hiatt Loves Torture
Well, I don’t know that for a fact. But I do know that the publication of Marc Thiessen’s propagandistic claims about Pelosi on the WaPo’s editorial page says more about the WaPo’s editorial page than it does about Pelosi. Let’s start with Thiessen’s primary claim.
According to this 2004 report, Pelosi objected to a CIA plan to provide money to moderate political parties in Iraq ahead of scheduled elections, in an effort to counter Iran, which was funneling millions to extremist elements. “House minority leader Nancy Pelosi ‘came unglued’ when she learned about what a source described as a plan for ‘the CIA to put an operation in place to affect the outcome of the elections,’ ” Time reported. “Pelosi had strong words with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in a phone call about the issue. . . . A senior U.S. official hinted that, under pressure from the Hill, the Administration scaled back its original plans.”
Well, as Thiessen points out himself (and the WaPo even links), David Ignatius has already reported this … in the WaPo! So why would Fred Hiatt feel the need to publish that news again, on his op-ed page?
But Thiessen–and presumably Hiatt–want to repeat this news so they can “prove” that Pelosi had the ability to alter intelligence programs that she didn’t like.
Only there are several problems with Thiessen’s claim. First, the briefings. As we’ve shown over and over and over and over, Pelosi was not briefed that the CIA had already waterboarded Abu Zubaydah during her only briefing on this issue before 2006. And she certainly wasn’t briefed that CIA was going into the torture business before they did so. So it would have been absolutely impossible for her to halt the waterboarding that had already happened, not to mention the planned ones she wasn’t told about. Given the CIA’s (probably deliberate) failure to brief Pelosi in timely fashion, they cannot now, no matter what Dick Cheney tells the former Bush speechwriter to write, claim that Pelosi could have prevented the waterboarding.
And the fact-impaired Thiessen also claims that this letter does not register a protest.
At the briefing you assured us that the [redacted] approved by the Attorney General have been subject to an extensive review by lawyers at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Justice and the National Security Council and found to be within the law.It is also the case, however, that what was described raises profound policy questions and I am concerned about whether these have been as rigorously examined as the legal questions.
That “I am concerned” about the “profound policy questions,” Thiessen? Those are protests. Protests, of course, that we know the CIA blew off.
So this is a transparently false argument, printed in Fred Hiatt’s premier real estate.
I guess Dick Cheney must be getting worried again about his liability for torture.
Update: minor changes for accuracy.
Or are Hiatt and the Post getting a fee from Regnery to hype Thiessen’s new book that puts CIA in a good light? At the end of the piece, there is this:
I see the column as Thiessen trying to inoculate the book against the arguments that will tear it to shreds (and those shreds are pretty tiny after only a few paragraphs here from EW!)
I have this question about the title of Thiessen’s book.
CIA “Kept” America safe and Obama is inviting the next attack?
Really? The past tense applied to CIA in his title seems to confirm the reality of a Team B under Cheney.
Propaganda
Wapoop is underwriting propaganda.
Is there a journalist more lacking in integrity than hiatt?
Yeah, you’re right but they work for fox news.
I think it’s worse than underwriting torture; they are a tool being used in an active cover-up from the looks of it. It’s as if they are trying to redirect our attention away from the possibility of a classified program not even Pelosi is aware of, by claiming she knew everything about all CIA plans — and yet, we know that the new DCI and Pelosi both didn’t not know about the assassination program (in the works if un-launched).
And again, all the redirection about CIA — how would Pelosi know about a program if highly compartmentalized clandestine (not covert) op, one running under JSOC? By definition, a clandestine op might not even be recognized.
There ought to have been no need for anyone to stop waterboarding and other Bush tortures. Bush and Cheney made them official government policy, but hid them for years, anticipating a firestorm of criticism (that ended up being a small firecracker from the msm and a consistent outcry from the lef).
Bush should never have gone down that path. He should have stopped his administration’s intentional widespread torture. He should have made amends and, like Canada, compensated and freed those he tortured – because he tortured them. He did neither. He lied, then spoke half truths, then proudly admitted his crimes, all while keeping his head down and letting his snowballs roll down hill unimpeded.
If Mr. Thiessen were concerned with stopping and punishing US government torture, instead of scoring political points off Democrats, he’d make that argument instead of inventing one that won’t fly.
“…impossible for her to halt the waterboarding that she had already happened…” That she learned had already happened?
Thanks–fixed it and a few other things after I came back from the gym and realized I had been illiterate this morning.
EW,
Thanks for bringing this to our attention with your usual eye for detail on the substance of this issue!
I was gonna make the same point as R.H. Green @ 6 but my message got stuck in the queue:
Mop up patrol: In the paragraph that begins “Only there are several problems with Thiessen’s claim”, there is an extraneous “she” in the sixth? sentence that needs to be deleted (“she had already happened”), and “deliberate” is misspelled.
Bob in AZ
There is a link to a letter to Muller from Harman (not Pelosi). At that link there is an option to see the actual size of the redaction in Adobe portable document format, pdf, rather than the text word [redaction] in the text version. The blank looks about thirteen characters in length.
In a state with which I am familiar, it is illegal for the executive branch to conduct serial private meetings with a quorum of a committee or commission, the way Bushco conducted the torture program notifications to congressional intell committee members.
_____
text version to which ew linked, there.
Adobe portable document format version; PDF.
Let’s hope dick war criminal cheney is starting to sweat bullets.
Until there is a complete open reversing of our policy torture/ Murder / treason is the new American principle we follow. Obama says we don’t torture so did george war criminal bush.
WaPo is still publishing? I thought they had become a local weekly with Broder covering the Planning Commission beat.
Thank you Marcy! Dick Cheney and other complicit and as yet, un-convicted felons, need to worry. Keep the Fire Dog spotlight on them!
I find it unbelievable that the Speaker of the House DID NOT know what was going on. I don’t buy that. She knew about the torture policies. Don’t believe for one second that she didn’t. They ALL knew and did nothing.
proof?
Why would you need proof? Is she not ONE of the replacements if anything happens to the Prez? And yet, she is uninformed of what is going on? Come on now. As the Speaker with all it’s power, she is informed of far more than what she admits. What proof is there that she didn’t know, other than she says so? She says lots of stuff that is pure BS.
Canadian
You may forget the timing on this.
The torture started in May 2002.
The CIA first briefed Congress–and no one disputes this (though I do suspect Porter Goss got an earlier briefing)–in Septmber 2002.
At that point, Pelosi was Chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
And again–according to all parties–the leadres of Congress (and not the Intelligence committees) were not briefed on torture until 2006, when BUsh brought the HVDs to Gitmo.
So Pelosi got an incomplete, inaccurate briefing in September 2002 when she was House Intell Chair, and the next briefing in 2006, when she was Minority Leader.
Revised title of this treacherous spy’s book:
“Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe* and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack.
* 9/11/01 excepted”
“when she learned about what a source described as a plan for ‘the CIA to put an operation in place to affect the outcome of the elections,’”; isn’t that the same as being concerned about foreign corporations influencing our elections?
Why doesn’t that bother Hiatt? (strictly rhetorical !)
Of course, when one is named ‘HI ATT’, that pretty much tells one where the author is coming from.
thanks for reminding me why i don’t read fred hiatt’s hideous rag.