Pelosi Denies Knowing Waterboarding Would Be Used

Source: The Raw Story

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is on the defensive after her Republican counterpart John Boehner (R-OH) claimed that top Democrats knew well the details of the Bush administration's torture program but did nothing to stop it.

In a Thursday press briefing, Pelosi flatly denied that she was ever told waterboarding would be used.

"My colleague , the chairman of the committee, has said 'if they say that it's legal you have to know they are going to use them,'" she said. "Well, his experience is that he was a member of the CIA, later went on to head the CIA and maybe his experience is that if they tell you one thing they may mean something else. My experience is that they did not tell us they were using that. Flat out. And any -- any contention to the contrary is simply not true."

"Pelosi said her recollection was, 'They told us they had opinions from the Office of Legal Counsel that they could, but not that they were' using so-called enhanced techniques, 'and that if and when they were used, they would brief Congress at that time,'" reported Congressional Quarterly. "She said she was never told that such techniques were actually being used."

"'As a member of Intelligence, I thought I was being briefed. I realized that was not true when I became ranking member' and got more information, she said," according to CQ Politics.

more: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Pelosi_denies_prior_knowledge_of_waterboarding_0423.html
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I didn't see this on a quick check in GD, sorry if its already been posted.

that they would use these techniques but you were defenseless to either report or stop it. :thumbsdown:

REPLACE PELOSI!

Nancy really needs to come clean on this, because testimony is going to come out, possibly even recordings or concurrent emails and other correspondence, that back up the truth. You can't hide from this kind of thing anymore.

It sounds like she is taking a page out of the credit card crisis, in saying that it was all just too complicated for her mind to wrap itself around the details and nuances of what was being said to her. Maybe President Obama will have to call for a more simplistic approach for congressional business in the future, so that even the dullest minds can comprehend.

Further, "willful ignorance" is NO DEFENSE. That is, claiming that she was not informed WHEN they used torture doesn't take her off the hook. When stories were being leaked by the Press, she was IMO, DUTY BOUND to make inquires.

It saddens me beyond belief that the first woman to hold this high office has FEET OF CLAY.

I hope to hell that she is replaced because she has ZERO moral courage. She's all about going along to get along. That type of persona is NOT what we should expect from any of our democratic legislators.

Do you have any clue how the Select Committee On Intelligence works?

The members are all briefed one at a time. They are sworn to secrecy. They can't even discuss what they have been told with others on the committee. No one knows what any of the others are told. So if they were to "leak" what they were told they may be "leaking" some detail that was only told to them. Which would make it very easy for Bush's DOJ to know who to have his FBI arrest for leaking these secrets.

So you would have been more brave you say and leaked what you were told?

I find that hard to believe friend.

Don

The whole world has been talking about waterboarding since the first POW/detainee was captured in Afghanistan

A couple of notes here...

As a member of Congress and, in 2002, on the intel committee, she was given special security clearances and access to briefings and other materials that were classified. To have this access, she was required not to discuss any of these security briefings...not with her staff, her husband...no one. Actually, there was one person...Dick Gephardt. But he was cloaked in the same national security "cone of silence". They start speaking out and they are immediately pounced on as traitors or lose any other access they may have.

Next...let's zoom back to 2002...a time when there was heavy political presure by the boosh regime and the corporate media to wave flags and the possibility of big election losses (which happened)...it was political suicide.

Lastly, while we had good indications of torture, there were no real documents that could prove it. As we've seen with the booooshies, they divulged the bare minimum to those they didn't like or to their useful idiots. These "briefings" were just enough to fulfil the law but not enough to go into specifics. It also forced Democrats who were part of those brieifings to comply while giving the rushpublicans there cover.

We're just beginning to see real eveidence and documentation...this story is far from told...

just curious why she wouldn't take that route

for anyone who had been briefed, imo. ICRC had already sent Bremmer a letter about abuse in 2003 just shortly after he took over, iirc. But even if that letter was unknown to Pelosi, there is no way that she or anyone else who had been briefed could look at those images and not put two and two together.

The torture program lasted another four years. :(

I think the frustration for many of us with this awful topic (besides having to discuss "our" government torturing in "our" name), is that while we had information from reliable sources...Downing Street Memo, IRC report and tons of news articles, we didn't have hard, cold evidence until just two weeks ago. Remember, these memos were also subpoeaned by Leahy and Conyers and were stonewalled with "executive privilidge"...and I really doubt anyone but the authors ever laid eyes on those memos...surely not anyone in the Democratic leadership. You can put the images together, but without hard evidence, it would have been difficult, even with what had been released, to prove a systemic torture program that those memos document, and I suspect we'll be seeing/hearing more. It's gone from a he said/he said to something that a true investigation and prosecution can go with.

Yes...it lasted four years...as did an illegal war for profit and so many other crimes. There's no way to move forward until we demand accountability. We need to remain vigilient and keep pushing anyone and everyone to not "look forward" as until we deal with these crimes, we'll be chained to the past...and with blood on all our hands.

with a briefing and checked with ICRC -- who would know if anything was going on and who had been sounding the alarm from very early on. They really know what is happening and they & their letters and reports have legal standing in the international community.

I have to assume that Pelosi wasn't motivated because she had the resources at her disposal to "really know".

But you know I'm still pissed at her so, the Pillar of Salt Rule applies here.

first came out about the Intelligence Committee being briefed, but I think the only source cited about the meeting was Porter Goss. Nelson also said that they were not told that the government was using torture. I would hope that judgment about this issue would be held back until more facts emerge.

what a jackass she is .

Code Pink demonstrated outside her house.. her freaking house.. day after day.. people were in orange jump suits.

I can't even image how many letters and emails she received.

What a very stupid thing for her to say.

A truly honest person would say, I was bound by National Security censor. I couldn't even report these techniques. The forgoing admission would have been the honest and noble thing to say.

But NO! Nancy's totally innocent due to her "willful ignorance."

is there Nancy?

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

Then they locked up the social democrats,

I remained silent;

I was not a social democrat.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

I did not speak out;

I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,

I did not speak out;

I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,

there was no one left to speak out for me.

He was not on the Intelligence Committee. Everyone else was sworn to secrecy. If they told him, they could be held in violation of House rules and seriously reprimanded. Who told him?

BLAME THE pukes, get out from the circular firing squad.

Obvious isn't it?

Don

Let the Justice Department pursue it wherever it may lead...

If Pelosi did not know, she will have nothing to even consider about this any further. No worries & Lucky her!

If she did know, and couldn't talk about it, I'd like to hear now that she can speak about it - a.) they told her - b.) she strongly objected but could do no more due to national security secrecy.

If she did know and approved (or did not disagree), then we should learn that as well.

Facts will speak for themselves however they come out and I agree, it should not be anything other than a straightforward legal investigation. No more, no less.

Like the politicians who voted for the IWR and later claimed that they didn't know that all those troops in Kuwait weren't there to improve their tans rather than invade Iraq.

For heaven's sake, he is a confirmed Liar and Dissembler.

Additionally he is well versed in Republican 101: BLAME OTHERS FOR WHAT YOU YOURSELF DO



This is like Karl Rove claiming "Obama is the most divisive President ever!"

Or Dick Cheney in 2004 saying that "John Kerry has no moral center or strong sense of right and wrong"

Remember when she was on Air Force One with the Chimp and said he wasn't such a bad guy.

Nancy: "So George we don't do waterboarding?"

George: "Heh, heh...of course not (wink, wink). That's against the Genevia Convention."

Nancy: "Whew, well that's a relief. Now I can sleep without guilty feelings hanging over me."

George: "Trust me. I'm the decider."