ObamaOdrama

During a weekly news conference, the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi faced some “enhanced” questioning by the press. Crumbling under the intense scrutiny, Pelosi instinctively attacked the Central Intelligence Agency and Bush administration in her own defense.

“Yes I am saying the CIA was misleading the Congress and at the same time the (Bush) administration was misleading the Congress on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, to which I said that this intelligence doesn’t support the imminent threat,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference.

“Every step of the way the administration was misleading the Congress and that is the issue and that’s why we need a truth commission,” she added.

Under a barrage of questioning, Pelosi also again adamantly insisted that she was not aware that waterboarding or other enhanced interrogation techniques were being used on terrorism suspects and

“I am telling you they told me they approved these and said they wanted to use them but said they were not using waterboarding,” she said.

Ironically, Nancy didn’t suspect anything as the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee in 2002 when she was “informed” by the CIA they have the legal right to use these enhanced interrogation techniques but haven’t implemented them yet… or so SHE says.

Why didn’t she request or attend any further briefing on interrogation techniques while a member of the Intelligence Committee? Why didn’t she personally raise objection to the use of waterboarding when it was a fact a couple months later? Why didn’t she try to block funding for the C.I.A. programs associated with enhanced interrogation techniques?

“No letter could change the policy. It was clear we had to change the leadership in Congress and in the White House. That was my job — the Congress part.”

Oh, I see… Nancy was too busy campaigning.

Somehow, everyone around Nancy Pelosi seemed to know that the CIA was using waterboarding as an enhanced interrogation technique except for Nancy herself…

A top aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attended a CIA briefing in early 2003 in which it was made clear that waterboarding and other harsh techniques were being used in the interrogation of an alleged al-Qaeda operative, according to documents the CIA released to Congress on Thursday.

Pelosi has insisted that she was not directly briefed by Bush administration officials that the practice was being actively employed. But Michael Sheehy, a top Pelosi aide, was present for a classified briefing that included Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), then the ranking minority member of the House intelligence committee, at which agency officials discussed the use of waterboarding on terrorism suspect Abu Zubaida.

A Democratic source acknowledged yesterday that it is almost certain that Pelosi would have learned about the use of waterboarding from Sheehy. Pelosi herself acknowledged in a December 2007 statement that she was aware that Harman had learned of the waterboarding and had objected in a letter to the CIA’s top counsel.

“It was my understanding at that time that Congresswoman Harman filed a letter in early 2003 to the CIA to protest the use of such techniques, a protest with which I concurred,” Pelosi said in the Dec. 9, 2007, statement.

Plausible deniability… isn’t it great?

In light of newly released CIA documents showing Nancy Pelosi was one of the first members of Congress briefed on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques back in Sept. 2002, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi quickly released the following press statement:

“Of the forty CIA briefings to Congress reported recently in the press, I was only briefed once, on September 4, 2002, as I have previously stated. As I said in my statement of December 9, 2007: ‘I was briefed on interrogation techniques the Administration was considering using in the future. The Administration advised that legal counsel for both the CIA and the Department of Justice had concluded that the techniques were legal.’ I had no further briefings on the techniques.

“My understanding of the briefing I received is consistent with the description that CIA General Counsel Scott Muller provided to Congresswoman Jane Harman in a letter dated February 28, 2003, which states: ‘As we informed both you and the leadership of the Intelligence Committees last September, a number of Executive Branch lawyers including lawyers from the Department of Justice participated in the determination that, in the appropriate circumstances, the use of these techniques is fully consistent with U.S. law.’ As reported in the press, the accompanying memo from CIA Director Panetta concedes that the descriptions provided by the CIA may not be accurate.”

Pelosi has less regard for the truth than the CIA did for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The Washington Post reports that congressional Republicans and Democrats both agree to disagree with Obama on closing Guantanamo Bay if detainees end up on U.S. soil.

The Democratic-led House Appropriations Committee yesterday passed a bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while stripping the more than $50 million that administration officials had requested for closing the prison and starting the relocation of its 240 prisoners.
Lawmakers criticized the administration for not yet offering a detailed plan on prisoner relocation.
Republicans, who have said the issue is an example of Obama’s weakness on national security, accused the president of endangering Americans. They proposed legislation dubbed the “Keep Terrorists Out of America Act,” which would bar moving Guantanamo prisoners to a U.S. facility unless the receiving state’s governor and legislature approved.
“Our constituents don’t want these terrorists in their neighborhoods,” said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio.).
But several Democrats have joined Republicans in saying they do not want Guantanamo prisoners in their states or districts. When officials in Hardin, Mont., a city that has a prison with no inmates, said they would accept detainees from Guantanamo Bay, the state’s Democratic senators shot down the idea.
“You cannot close Guantanamo unless you have a plan,” said Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.).
“I wouldn’t want them, and I wouldn’t take them,” said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). “I don’t see a solution.”

When an administration has scratched the word terrorist from it vocabulary, it doesn’t take much to appreciate Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement that United States will not release anyone considered a terrorists into the country.

The Washington Post reports that the Central Intelligence Agency released documents showing that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was brief in September 2002 about the use of “enhanced” interrogation techniques contradicting her repeated denial.

In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress ever briefed on the interrogation tactics. Then the ranking member and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, respectively, Pelosi and Goss were briefed Sept. 4, 2002, one week before the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The memo, issued by the Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency to Capitol Hill, notes the Pelosi-Goss briefing covered “EITs including the use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah.” EIT is an acronym for enhanced interrogation technique. Zubaydah was one of the earliest valuable al-Qaeda members captured and the first to have the controversial tactic known as water boarding used against him.

The issue of what Pelosi knew and when she knew it has become a matter of heated debate on Capitol Hill. Republicans have accused her of knowing for many years precisely the techniques CIA agents were using in interrogations, and only protesting the tactics when they became public and liberal antiwar activists protested.

I think it’s time to interrogate Nancy Peolsi… she’s the poster child for some enhanced techniques if there ever was one right now.