GOP's Torture Strategy: Pelosi

Politico: Republicans Are Countering Calls For An Investigation By Saying That The House Speaker Should Be Included

(The Politico)  This story was written by Manu Raju.

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For Democrats pushing an investigation into potential criminal wrongdoing in the war on terrorism, the GOP now has a two-word response: Nancy Pelosi.

Republicans say new revelations about a CIA briefing Pelosi received in 2002 have given them their best shot yet at blocking a sprawling probe into Bush administration interrogation techniques by allowing them to insist that its targets would include the speaker of the House.

“If someone is going to schedule hearings, I believe that the first witness should be Nancy Pelosi,” Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the ranking member on the House intelligence committee, told POLITICO. “Clearly, she was involved in policy formulation.”

According to records released last week by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Pelosi and other congressional officials were told in 2002 that enhanced interrogation techniques had been used on terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah. The report appeared to contradict Pelosi’s claims - made earlier and again after the report was released - that she had been told only that such techniques might be used in the future, not that they had already been used.

According to a 2005 Justice Department memo released this year by the Obama administration, Zubaydah had been waterboarded 83 times by the time Pelosi was briefed in 2002.

In light of the intelligence report, Republicans say that any probe into torture should be broadened to include what Pelosi knew and how much influence she had in shaping the Bush administration’s controversial policies.

The GOP’s goal, according to congressional Republicans, is to dissuade Democrats from pursuing an inquiry that could lead to the prosecution of Bush administration officials by making it clear to Democrats that Pelosi and other lawmakers would have to testify, too.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, said in an interview that if Pelosi failed to object to the techniques at the time, she was “an enabler” and “an accomplice” if any crimes were committed. If an investigation goes forward, King said, Pelosi should be forced to divulge what she knew.

In a statement Friday, Pelosi said she had been advised at the 2002 briefing about techniques the Bush administration was “considering using in the future” - and that she’d been assured they were legal. Pelosi also pointed to a letter from CIA Director Leon Panetta saying that the memo’s description of the briefings “may not be accurate.”

Still, Republicans believe they now have Pelosi caught in a jam: To satisfy her liberal base, she’s got to keep pressing for an investigation into potential crimes by the Bush administration. But if Republicans can score points with the “what did she know and when did she know it?” question, Pelosi also may have an interest in putting this issue aside.

“I’ll be very curious to see how she deals with it,” said a senior House GOP aide. “Does she stop talking about it and piss off her left?”

Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for the speaker, said Saturday that Republicans are “trying to politicize intelligence with irresponsible actions” and that Pelosi still supports an inquiry into the use of the interrogation techniques. The House and Senate intelligence committees have launched internal reviews, but it’s unclear whether they will expand beyond classified inquiries.

So far, Democrats seem determined to keep their inquiries focused on the Bush administration.

“There should be no effort to divert attention from the fundamental question of why this policy was created and who was responsible for its design and execution,” said Trevor Kincaid, a spokesman for Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who chairs an intelligence subcommittee that is taking part ina review of harsh interrogation techniques.

The documents released last week showed that the CIA held 40 briefings for a host of members of Congress from 2002 until March 2009 on the interrogation tactics, but that Pelosi participated only in the first briefing in September 2002. She was the top Democrat on the intelligence committee at the time.

Calls for an investigation into potential wrongdoing by Bush administration officials are expected to mount once the Justice Department releases a long-anticipated report on the memos that authorized the tough interrogation techniques.

The report is expected to criticize John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury, three former top officials in the department’s Office of Legal Counsel who were the prime authors of the controversial torture memos.

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, said it’s only fair to include Pelosi and other Democrats in any investigation that follows.

“If it’s fair game to second-guess the lawyers in the Justice Department who were doing their job for doing a legal opinion that was asked for, then it’s fair game to investigate the intelligence officers who asked for the opinion, the Bush administration officials who approved the interrogation techniques, the members of Congress who might have known about it and the Clinton administration officials who knew about it, including Eric Holder, who was deputy attorney general,” Alexander said.

He added: “I believe President Obama’s first instinct was right when he said we should look forward.”

The Obama administration has resisted calls from Pelosi and other Democrats in Congress to pursue an investigation into the use of the brutal interrogation techniques - but has not ruled one out.

The intelligence document released last week does not specify the techniques on which Pelosi was briefed, nor does it make any mention of waterboarding. Nonetheless, Republicans are now prepared to argue that Pelosi bought into - or at least signed off on - what the Bush administration was doing.

“They were American torture programs - if you want to call them torture - because Republicans and Democrats knew about them, and did nothing to stop them,” said Hoekstra, who called for the release of additional memos to detail what Pelosi was told in the 2002 briefing.

In a hearing last Thursday before a Senate panel, Alexander pointedly asked Attorney General Eric Holder whether it was safe to assume that the use of the interrogation techniques should be broadened to include members of Congress or the Clinton administration.

“Hypothetically, that might be true. I don’t know,” Holder said.

[mnguyen4]

This is pure political blackmailing by the GOP. They are bringing an irrelevant subject of Nancy Pelosi being briefed by the CIA to try to stop the Democrats' investigation of war crimes activities happening under the Bush Administration and under a Republican-controlled Congress.

I wonder if Americans will continue to tolerate war crimes activities committed by their government and political blackmailing carried out by Republican lawmakers and NeoCons.

[rwjacksr]

Obama is still paying for his votes with our cash, how many people received that million dollar bonus for breaking their company, the companys could not pay its bonuses with out the gifts from the Obama Administration. How many more are we going to pay off with taxpayer dollars, this is without a doubt the most expensive election in the world, our great great grandkids will still be paying off this scam long after all of us are dead and gone. Obama got a lot of change, he screwed americas taxpayers and will leave office along with Nancy Polosi and a lot of others very ritch for his efforts. I bet he does it in 4 years.

[rwjacksr]

If you really want to get the people who approved waterboarding, there all still in Washington, they call themselves Congress. Both Democrat and Republican who were there including Nancy Poloci. You can always tell when she is lying, her mouth is open and there is nothing sticking out.

[antoniof123]

Retardicans hail. How sad...
Posted by tj217-2009 at 8:11 AM : May 12, 2009

What I don't get is how they the wacko's on the right keep saying Churchill he wasn't even re-elected to a second term in office the English saw through is garbage when the Americans took the lead to destroy the German army and bring them peace. They knew somthing these idiot right wing wacko's don't. Churchill was good for war but not for peace and the English removed him before he had a chance to screw up their country.

[bigsk8fan]

sorry republican neocons, american still want to get those who approved of torture.

[notblue]

nancynaive, your selective memory is nothing short of amazing. You really do not remember the moral high ground argument against waterboarding? Of course you don't! LOL!

[casionova]

Posted by leeanna59

SorryLeeanna, just need to point out I didnt say it was an excuse for Saddam to do it, nor did I say gassing people was funny, the Brits hypocrisy is funny.
Not that I think you were saying that I just wanted to be clear :o)

[omega39-2009]

Yes, we are so good. Nothing moves around this planet that we can't catch. That is why there are no illegal aliens in this country.
Posted by leeanna59 at 7:54 AM : May 12, 2009

Well, none that carried in 500 tons of pinatas
Posted by nancy_naive

LOL! ºOº

[leeanna59]

She should NOT be held accountable, no dems should, they are not evil like all republicans.
Posted by BerkeleySkirtLifter

The top number two reasons why Obama should be kept well, safe and alive.

No. 1 If something happens to Obama, Biden would be our President.

No. 2 If something happens to Obama and Biden, Nancy Pelosi would be our President.

[leeanna59]

When these same crtisizing libs speak about morals their hipocrisy is beyond comprehension.
Posted by notblue

Yes, you are right, and thank you for the post.

[notblue]

tj217, you and Nancynaive are also proof that libs are idiots too. Enough said.

[omega39-2009]

they feel it's ok to kill a fetus that could survive and be a perfectly viable human being outsidet he womb.
Posted by notblue

We have even advocated water boarding those fetuses in extreme cases, like trying to obtain intelligence on how many other fetuses may be hiding out in that womb. You are sooooo melodramatic.

[leeanna59]

Never mind that under the watchful eyes of the satellites and the U2 overflights that a convoy to move this stuff would have stretched from Baghdad to Damascus. Maybe he sent them FedEx and that is why we missed them.....
Posted by omega39-2009

Yes, we are so good. Nothing moves around this planet that we can't catch. That is why there are no illegal aliens in this country.

[notblue]

tj217, Clinton insisted Sadam had them also, why is it you libs are able to ignore any truth, facts, or history prior to eight years ago?

[notblue]

The liberal stand on torture carries a double standard. Most libs that frequent these posts would not justify torture under any circumstances if it meant their own destruction at the jhands of an enemy, or so they claim. It would be immoral for them to waterboard one captured terrorist even if it meant that the information obtained would save tens of thousands innocent civilians while at the same time they feel it's ok to kill a fetus that could survive and be a perfectly viable human being outsidet he womb. When these same crtisizing libs speak about morals their hipocrisy is beyond comprehension.

[leeanna59]

psssst.
those weapons he used, we gave them to him because he was our good buddy
back in the day, why ole Rummy himself went there to set it up....
Posted by Azteca_Urbano

Well, that might be true too. And even so, that is no excuse to use them to k i l l 50,000 of his own people. If someone gives me a weapon should I use to k i l l 50,000 people just because it was given to me?

[omega39-2009]

the WMD had been moved to Syria.
Posted by leeanna59

Ahhh, revisionism at its finest. Never mind that the CIA was claiming Saddam had 500 tonnes of Chemical weapons and 125,000 shells to deliver them in.Never mind that under the watchful eyes of the satellites and the U2 overflights that a convoy to move this stuff would have stretched from Baghdad to Damascus. Maybe he sent them FedEx and that is why we missed them.....

Speaking on the anniversary of the United States' invasion of Iraq, originally declared as a pre-emptive strike against a madman ready to deploy weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), the man first charged with finding those weapons said that the U.S. government has "the same mind frame as the witch hunters of the past" ? looking for evidence to support a foregone conclusion.

"There were about 700 inspections, and in no case did we find weapons of mass destruction," said Hans Blix, the Swedish diplomat called out of retirement to serve as the United Nations' chief weapons inspector from 2000 to 2003; from 1981 to 1997 he headed the International Atomic Energy Agency. "We went to sites [in Iraq] given to us by intelligence, and only in three cases did we find something" - a stash of nuclear documents, some Vulcan boosters, and several empty warheads for chemical weapons. More inspections were required to determine whether these findings were the "tip of the iceberg" or simply fragments remaining from that deadly iceberg's past destruction, Blix said he told the United Nations Security Council. However, his work in Iraq was cut short when the United States and the United Kingdom took disarmament into their own hands in March of last year.

Blix accused U.S. President George W. Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair of acting not in bad faith, but with a severe lack of "critical thinking." The United States and Britain failed to examine the sources of their primary intelligence - Iraqi defectors with their own agendas for encouraging regime change - with a skeptical eye, he alleged. In the buildup to the war, Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis were cooperating with U.N. inspections, and in February 2003 had provided Blix's team with the names of hundreds of scientists to interview, individuals Saddam claimed had been involved in the destruction of banned weapons. Had the inspections been allowed to continue, Blix said, there would likely be a very different situation in Iraq today. As it was, America's pre-emptive, unilateral actions "have bred more terrorism there and elsewhere."

[leeanna59]

Thats why I thought it was funny to hear the brits condemning saddam the monster for gassing his own people when they did it first....
Posted by casionova

I've never heard of that one, I'll have to do some research. However, even if it is true, that was no excuse for Saddam to do it. That is like saying that if a foreign country comes here and gasses a city in the USA, that it would be all right for Obama to do the same. I don't think it is funny no matter who does it to whom.

[leeanna59]

"GOP's Torture Strategy: Pelosi"

She was caught in her own trap of lies and hypocrisy.
Posted by _NunesPaul

I know, it is just wonderful.

[moderateminded44]

So we are in agreement then. Cheney is a liar.

Posted by casionova at 7:33 AM : May 12, 2009

And we are also in agreement that Pelosi and Obama are liars as well.

Pelosi knew about the torture in Gitmo, and Barack adopted the failed Bush exit strategy from Iraq. I have no problem calling politicians liars. How about you?