Pelosi: Officials said "they wouldn't use" waterboarding

[kpete]

Source: Politico

April 28, 2009
Categories: Pelosi
Pelosi: Officials said "they wouldn't use" waterboarding

Nancy Pelosi sat down with CNN's Candy Crowley tonight and gave her most detailed -- and passionate -- explanation of her muted behavior during an initial classified briefing on enhanced interrogation procedures in 2002.

Crowley -- a tough, well-informed and underrated interviewer -- kicked it off by asking the Speaker about about a column by former CIA director and ex-House intel chairman Porter Goss accusing Democrats of collective "amnesia" for urging investigations of waterboarding after remaining relatively mute during those first classified briefings.

PELOSI: Well, first of all, let me say that perhaps we do live in an alternate universe, Porter and I.

Porter’s orientation is that he was a member of the CIA before he came to Congress and he speaks now as a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

CROWLEY: Is he wrong?

PELOSI: Perhaps he is seeing it from his perspective. If they say we have a legal opinion, it means we’re going to use it. That’s not how I heard it. They said they had a legal opinion. They said they weren’t going to use and when they did they would come back to Congress to report to us on that. But that’s how I heard that.

Let me say what’s important about how we go forward. Because for some reason the Republicans, while I am barred from talking about what goes on in meetings and I could be charged for revealing classified information, they seem to feel at liberty to talk about everything that went on at every meeting as they saw it.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0409/Pelosi_Officials_said_they_wouldnt_use_waterboarding.html

[BlooInBloo]

1. Oh - well - if they SAID so, what more is there for one solitary Speaker Of The Fucking House to do?

(facepalm)

[marshall]

2. At least her memory is getting better

And she's ready to move on.

[Sagan]

3. CROWLEY is a "a tough, well-informed and underrated interviewer"???

Maybe when interviewing Democrats. But she is an unabashed GOP shill.

Of course, so is Politico.

[Demeter]

4. Nancy Pelosi as Sargent Shultz?

Get the hook!

[ixion]

5. I see CNN is sticking with the "enhanced interrogation procedures" meme

rather than calling it what it is: TORTURE.

[Wizard777]

6. Isn't Pelosi part of the group of 8?

There were 8 Senators and Reps called to a White House meeting. They were informed of Bush's plans and threatened with prosecution if they even revealed that the meeting took place to anyone. But if they did lie to Congress AGAIN! One day Congress will make it a crime for not only private citizens to lie to them about their steroid use. They will also make it a crime for Government officials to lie to them about atrocities. The question that remain to be answered is, can Congress still function without government officials lying through their teeth to them?

[MasonJar]

7. I remember Pelosi and Rockefeller both being upset by what they heard and

writing the administration about their concerns. It is hard to see what they should have done with legal opinions saying that the CLASSIFIED info was legal and with being told the procedures would not be used unless the Bush administration came back and informed Congress. They were, after all, dealing with the most secretive and ignominious administration in history. It was possibly inconceivable to them that the Bushista was as bad as it turned out to be. It is, we now know, one of a kind. Even Obama today with his much more advanced knowledge of what happened is dragging his feet and digging in his toes to stop investigation. I'd like to see DU stop criticizing Pelosi et al until Obama and his administration (with much more definite info) do something to punish the evil doers... or at least start the procedure to investigate them. The proverbial ball is in Obama's court much more than it was ever in Pelosi's. To some extent her hands were tied by laws against disclosure of classified info; Obama's are no longer. I say we spend our energies pressuring Barack to appoint a Special Prosecutor.

[emulatorloo]

8. I remember this too, as well as reports of difficulties of getting answers - Bush would point to DOD

and DOD would point back to Bush admin.

I wish I could find the story, but basically when Congress asked for info

-- Bush admin would say "That is a Defense issue, ask them"
-- Defense would say "That is a Bush admin issue, ask them"

[No Elephants]

16. And Congress was just helpless to do anything at all about that? I don't think so.

[No Elephants]

14. I have contacted my Rep, my Senators, the D of J and the WH re: Special Prosecutor and begged poster

here to do the same. I've posted the contact addresses at least six times in the last week. However, that does not mean I must let Democrats off the hook. Pelosi, in particular, was the one who declared impeachment to be out of the question as soon as she became speaker in 2006. Whoever was tortured between then and January, 2009, that's on her hands, too, IMO.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

15. There have been plenty of instances where---

someones "hands were tied by laws against disclosure of classified info" yet that person stepped up and did the right thing.

Do the Pentagon Papers sound familiar?

All along -- from before the war right through torture, there have been people who have stepped up (from the CIA, State, Justice) and revealed classifed information to reporters in an attempt to stop what was happening.

Also, Nancy and the others could have said to BushCo. at that meeting, "Stop right there, what you are proposing is illegal regardless of the 'legal opinions' you are presenting -- this option is to be taken off the table. Period. And if we find out you have gone ahead with the plan there will be hell to pay."

How hard would that have been?

At least that way, she wouldn't have to be trying to cover her ass with her lame excuses right now.

[Doctor_J]

9. Let's weep for the level that the torture debate has sunk to

The GOP's moral bankruptcy continues to plumb new depths. They are using the torture that they all approve of, to this day, as a political football.

I keep believing I have seen them at their most evil, and they continue to outdo themselves.

[Mari333]

10. heh. she is pititful in her excuses. nt

[Hell Hath No Fury]

11. Horse. And., Shit.

That's some fine hair splittin' you are trying there, missy, :eyes:

After voting for her repeatedly over the years, I gave my vote to an opponent in the last election -- and it's becasue of shit like this. :mad:

[Winterblues]

12. Wasn't that meeting just about the same time that "Impeachment is OFF the Table"?

I trust her completely...yes indeedy. complete trust...

[SpiralHawk]

13. "D'oh. The Dems rolled over and took peaches off the table. Smirk." - xCommander AWOL

"Ya gotta wonder, what was up with dat. Smirk."

- xCommander AWOL (R)

[No Elephants]

17. The man comes to you and says, "We have a legal opinion that such and such is not torture." And

that gives you no clue that the Administration intends to engage in "such and such?" And what Bushco did with the oh, so carefully worded Iraq War Resolution did not alert you, either? And, after all the talk of torture and rendition in the media, you were still too clueless to even start investigating?

Well, then, maybe you is jes dang dumb to be third in line to the Presidency of the mostest powerful country in the world. Well, at least we were the most powerful country in the world in the not too distant past.

And, in spite of everything--the Iraqi invasion, illegal wiretaps, torture, rendition, etc., one of the very first things you did upon becoming Speaker in 2006 was to declare impeachment off the table?

What is that on your hands, Nancy?