"Fox News": Since 2002 Congress had more than 30 meetings and briefings regarding torture

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/23/republicans-claim-lawmakers-loop-interrogations/

Republicans Claim Top Lawmakers Were in the Loop on Interrogations
FOX News has learned there were more than 30 meetings and briefings with Congress on the subject since 2002. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was at the first one, and raised no objections to the interrogation techniques discussed.


Republicans are looking to turn the tables on Democrats open to prosecuting Bush-era lawyers for justifying "enhanced" interrogation techniques, as they seek to expose those lawmakers briefed on the tactics while they were being employed.

FOX News has learned there were more than 30 meetings and briefings with Congress on the subject since 2002.

The first such briefing dealt with the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, Al Qaeda's operations chief who ran the training camps in Afghanistan were the Sept. 11 hijackers were trained. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, now House speaker, attended along with then-Rep. Porter Goss, Fla., (who later became CIA director), but did not raise any objections, sources said.

The briefings were given until 2006 to the chairmen and ranking members of the intelligence committees in the House and Senate. That could cover Sen. John Rockefeller, W.Va., and Rep. Jane Harman, Calif., both Democrats, as well as Sen. Pat Roberts, Kan., Sen. Lindsey Graham, S.C., Sen. Richard Shelby, Ala., and Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Mich., all Republicans.

Defenders of the interrogation program note that if Congress had wanted to kill the program, all it had to do was withhold funding, which didn't happen.