Tuesday, May 01, 2012

More Evidence Nancy Pelosi Lied About Never Being Briefed About Enhanced Interrogation



You'll recall that during the early days of the Obama Administration, secret memos were released that detailed our interrogation techniques for America's enemies and CIA interrogators were targeted by the Obama Justice Department for prosecution.

Part of the festivities was then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, telling the American people she was never briefed about any of the enhanced interrogation techniques during the tenure of the Bush Administration, something other Congressmen who were in the same briefings recalled very differently.

New proof has surfaced on how blatantly Rep. Pelosi lied to the American people, this time, from former CIA counterterrorism chief Jose Rodriguez who's now free to reveal what actually happened:

In his new book, “Hard Measures,” Rodriguez reveals that he led a CIA briefing of Pelosi, where the techniques being used in the interrogation of senior al-Qaeda facilitator Abu Zubaida were described in detail. Her claim that she was not told about waterboarding at that briefing, he writes, “is untrue.”

“We explained that as a result of the techniques, Abu Zubaydah was compliant and providing good intelligence. We made crystal clear that authorized techniques, including waterboarding, had by then been used on Zubaydah.” Rodriguez writes that he told Pelosi everything, adding, “We held back nothing.”

How did she respond when presented with this information? Rodriguez writes that neither Pelosi nor anyone else in the briefing objected to the techniques being used. Indeed, he notes, when one member of his team described another technique that had been considered but not authorized or used, “Pelosi piped up immediately and said that in her view, use of that technique (which I will not describe) would have been ‘wrong.’ ” She raised no such concern about waterboarding, he writes. “Since she felt free to label one considered-and-rejected technique as wrong,” Rodriguez adds, “we went away with the clear impression that she harbored no such feelings about the ten tactics [including waterboarding] that we told her were in use.”

So we’re left with a “he said-she said” standoff? Not at all. Rodriguez writes that there’s contemporaneous evidence to back his account of the briefing. Six days after the meeting took place, Rodriguez reveals, “a cable went out from headquarters to the black site informing them that the briefing for the House leadership had taken place.” He explains that “[t]he cable to the field made clear that Goss and Pelosi had been briefed on the state of AZ’s interrogation, specifically including the use of the waterboard and other enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Rodriguez asks, “So Pelosi was another member of Congress reinventing the truth. What’s the big deal?” The big deal, he explains, is “the message they are sending to the men and women of the intelligence community who to this day are being asked to undertake dangerous and sometimes controversial actions on behalf of their government. They are told that the administration and Congress ‘have their back.’ You will forgive CIA officers if they are not filled with confidence.


Another gutsy call by a Democrat! Meanwhile Rodriquez had to deal with three years of legal costs and prosecution before this went away.

When you look at things like this, it becomes harder not to agree with Ann Coulter when she labels today's Democrats 'The Treason Party.' That bothers me more than you can imagine.

No comments: