On 05-14-09, DAVE DRUM said to DAN CEPPA:


-=> Dan Ceppa wrote to All <=-


DC> Former vp Cheney is claiming that prisoners are "well treated".


DC> Who is he kidding?  The use of torture is like a trip to Disneyland?


Congress and Waterboarding - WSJ


OPINION MAY 14, 2009 Congress and Waterboarding


Nancy Pelosi was an accomplice to 'torture.'


By KARL ROVE


Someone important appears not to be telling the truth about her knowledge of
the CIA's use of enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs). That someone is
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. The political persecution of Bush
administration officials she has been pushing may now ensnare her.


Here's what we know. On Sept. 4, 2002, less than a year after 9/11, the CIA
briefed Rep. Porter Goss, then House Intelligence Committee chairman, and Mrs.
Pelosi, then the committee's ranking Democrat, on EITs including
waterboarding.


They were the first members of Congress to be informed.


In December 2007, Mrs. Pelosi admitted that she attended the briefing, but she
wouldn't comment for the record about precisely what she was told. At the time
the Washington Post spoke with a "congressional source familiar with Pelosi's
position on the matter" and summarized that person's comments this
way: "The
source said Pelosi recalls that techniques described by the CIA were still in
the planning stage -- they had been designed and cleared with agency lawyers
but not yet put in practice -- and acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise
objections at the time."


When questions were raised last month about these statements, Mrs. Pelosi
insisted at a news conference that "We were not -- I repeat -- were not told
that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were
used." Mrs. Pelosi also claimed that the CIA "did not tell us
they were using
that, flat out. And any, any contention to the contrary is simply not true."


She had earlier said on TV, "I can say flat-out, they never told us that these
enhanced interrogations were being used."


The Obama administration's CIA director, Leon Panetta, and Mr. Goss have both
disputed Mrs. Pelosi's account.


In a report to Congress on May 5, Mr. Panetta described the CIA's 2002 meeting
with Mrs. Pelosi as "Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah,
background on [legal] authorities, and a description of the particular EITs
that had been employed." Note the past tense -- "had been employed."


Mr. Goss says he and Mrs. Pelosi were told at the 2002 briefing about the use
of the EITs and "on a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more
support from Congress to carry out its mission." He is backed by CIA sources
who say Mr. Goss and Mrs. Pelosi "questioned whether we were doing
enough" to
extract information.


We also know that Michael Sheehy, then Mrs. Pelosi's top aide on the
Intelligence Committee and later her national security adviser, not only
attended the September 2002 meeting but was also briefed by the CIA on EITs on
Feb. 5, 2003, and told about a videotape of Zubaydah being waterboarded. Mr.
Sheehy was almost certain to have told Mrs. Pelosi. He has not commented
publicly about the 2002 or the 2003 meetings.


So is the speaker of the House lying about what she knew and when? And, if so,
what will Democrats do about it?


If Mrs. Pelosi considers the enhanced interrogation techniques to be torture,
didn't she have a responsibility to complain at the time, introduce
legislation to end the practices, or attempt to deny funding for the CIA's use
of them? If she knew what was going on and did nothing, does that make her an
accessory to a crime of torture, as many Democrats are calling enhanced
interrogation?


Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy wants an independent investigation of Bush
administration officials. House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers feels the
Justice Department should investigate and prosecute anyone who violated laws
against committing torture. Are these and other similarly minded Democrats
willing to have Mrs. Pelosi thrown into their stew of torture conspirators as
an accomplice?


It is clear that after the 9/11 attacks Mrs. Pelosi was briefed on enhanced
interrogation techniques and the valuable information they produced. She not
only agreed with what was being done, she apparently pressed the CIA to do
more.


But when political winds shifted, Mrs. Pelosi seems to have decided to use
enhanced interrogation as an issue to attack Republicans. It is disgraceful
that Democrats who discovered their outrage years after the fact are now
braying for disbarment of the government lawyers who justified EITs and the
prosecution of Bush administration officials who authorized them. Mrs. Pelosi
is hip-deep in dangerous waters, and they are rapidly rising.


Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President
George W. Bush.







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*Durango b301 #PE*