Pelosi Accuses CIA of 'Misleading' Congress on Waterboarding

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday accused the CIA of misleading Congress about its use of enhanced interrogation techniques on terror detainees.

"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 said.

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

"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.

Growing increasingly frustrated throughout the briefing, Pelosi slowly started backing away from the podium as she tried to end the questioning. As she backed out, she continued to accuse the CIA of not telling Congress that dissenting opinions had been filed within the administration suggesting the methods were not lawful.

The CIA immediately disputed Pelosi's accusation, saying the documents describing the particular enhanced interrogation techniques that had been employed are accurate. CIA spokesman George Little noted that CIA Director Leon Panetta made available to the House Intelligence Committee memos from individuals who led the briefings with House members.

"The language in the chart-A description of the particular EITs that had been employed is true to the language in the agency's records," Little said. "The chart I'm referring to is, of course, the list of member briefings on enhanced interrogation techniques."

Republicans also questioned Pelosi's charge.

"It's hard for me to imagine anyone in our intelligence area would ever mislead a member of Congress," House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said at his weekly news conference. "They come to the Hill to brief us because they're required to under the law. I don't know what motivation they would have to mislead anyone."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/14/pelosi-reiterates-didnt-know-waterboarding-use/

Pelosi has been caught in a lie. RESIGN NOW!!

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If I had to determine who was lieing I would have to choose a government orginazition who has lied to the U.S. public for the last 60 years. That would be the CIA. Obama and the congress has let this go on for too long. We need to make everyone involved in this testify to the facts and let the chips fall where they may. Fat chance a bunch of self involved politicians would go for the truth!

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Since Pelosi wanted to investigate and perhaps prosecute Bush for war crimes, hmmmm, those at the briefings talking about water boarding, say that all Pelosi had to say was, "are we doing enough." So, it seems to me that Pelosi perhaps wanted more than water boarding. Maybe she should be prosecuted for war crimes, after all she was party to this, and that would be according to her own standard of abuse. She can be judge, jury, and the person on trial, all three, and she can convict herself.

Pelosi was, is, and will be a joke, always has been.

She has stepped in it bigtime now, calling the CIA liars.

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Princess Pelosi is a cunning runt and she needs to step down or be forced out of office.

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@H2O MAN,

I thought it was pretty telling when she said her "job" was to get Democrats elected. Thats what she said. I guess she considers representing her district is not her job, serving on committees is not her job. Getting elected and helping other Democrats get elected, that is her job, thats we are paying her to do. LOL. How do bimbos like this get to Washington?

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@okie,

okie wrote:

How do bimbos like this get to Washington?

Must be their oral skills.

Pelosi may be a Hoover, but I bet Barney Frank would blow her panties off in a head to head competition.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

She has stepped in it bigtime now, calling the CIA liars.

yeah, they'd never do that.

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@DontTreadOnMe,

DontTreadOnMe wrote:

okie wrote:

She has stepped in it bigtime now, calling the CIA liars.

yeah, they'd never do that.

Get serious, DTOM, Pelosi has had too many stories and inconsistencies. Plus, there would be no motivation here for the CIA to lie about this at that time. Plus there are other people that participated in these briefings that somehow understood perfectly what was going on, so how come Pelosi can plead ignorance? Also, her own party is showing signs of pulling the rug out from under her. It may be too early to say they will force her out, but it is possible. So if Emanuel is showing up on her caller ID, she might want to not answer the call? But then again, Pelosi may have a few dirty tricks up her sleeve to prevent Obama and Emanuel from making that call?

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Quote:

Pelosi said she was briefed only once on the interrogation methods in September 2002. She acknowledged that her intelligence aide, Michael Sheehy, informed her about another briefing five months later in which Bush officials said waterboarding was being used on CIA terror detainee Abu Zubaydah.

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actually I remember that Barry Goldwater was the first to complain that the CIA lied to him in senate hearings.

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@dyslexia,

dys, there is no doubt the CIA plays politics, and tries to cover its own mistakes up, witness the Iraq intelligence debacle where they tried to blame that on Bush after the fact, rather than on their own incompetence and what they told Bush. And there are factions within the CIA that are at cross purposes with each other. However, we have the Republican, Boehner, plus Joe Lieberman, at least two, and there are assuredly more, that say they understood things differently than Pelosi, and I would judge Boehner and Lieberman's honesty at a far higher level than Pelosi. And there are notes as to what went on in these briefings, so she is really going out on a limb here.

Another point, if she sends her assistant to the briefing, she is still responsible for what was presented there. If her assistant did not tell her everything, which is doubtful, she still has no leg to stand on. That is not a good alibi, although she is using it. That does not translate into the CIA lying, it translates into she wasn't doing her job and she has a lousy assistant. Also, I have to wonder, how does an assistant attend a meeting like this with national security information. I was not aware that was standard practice in Washington. I don't think it should be, not with national security information.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

DontTreadOnMe wrote:

okie wrote:

She has stepped in it bigtime now, calling the CIA liars.

yeah, they'd never do that.

Get serious, DTOM, Pelosi has had too many stories and inconsistencies. Plus, there would be no motivation here for the CIA to lie about this at that time. ...

sure there's reason for the cia to lie. "it's a slam dunk" sound familiar?

look, i really, really dislike the idea of americans torturing people. there's scads of experts who say it doesn't get good info. and i can believe it. somebody ties me up and starts drowning me, i'm gonna say what they want to hear.

that said, i don't feel like this stuff is priority number 1 in the middle of a global economic earthquake. obama has reiterated, or reinstated the legal bans on torture that cheney and company saw fit to crap all over. so, we have time to do a thorough, and non-hysterical investigation.

i believe that there's a hell of a lot more beneath the surface of the torture issue that people don't want to come out. "torture" is just the prologue to what could be completely incendiary revelations about other misdeeds and total cock ups that went down over the last 8 years.

pelosi may or may not have inconsistencies, but the c.i.a. has certainly had them as well.

and that is why i support the idea of an independent commission, ala 911 comm. to do the legwork. i'd be fine with some of the same people running it as well.

i think there's an awful lot of stuff that an awful lot of people would like to leave buried. not just pelosi and the dems, not just cheney and the pubbies, and not just the intelligence community.

situation normal.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

However, we have the Republican, Boehner...

but as i understand it, boehner wasn't even in a position that would have granted him a seat at the briefings.

and lieberman? how much stock would you put in his word if he had migrated from republican to democrat or what ever? i haven't heard you praising specter, so i'm guessing not too much.

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@DontTreadOnMe,

I think Krauthammer explains it best. Such as how come Pelosi is the only one the CIA lied to, while telling everyone else the truth?

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@okie,

okie wrote:

I think Krauthammer explains it best. Such as how come Pelosi is the only one the CIA lied to, while telling everyone else the truth?

krauthammer? are you kidding me? of course he's going to throw it out there in the worst possible light, he's a totally dyed in the wool neo-con. he's a trained psychiatrist, he knows just how to push the right buttons.

and as a neo-con, of course he's going to do whatever he can to defend his fellow neo-cons like cheney and rumsfeld.

and it should be very clear that the bush administration pretty much threw the republican/conservative book in the trash and went full bore into neo-con land. did bush enter office that way? i don't think so. but do believe that what he thought would be a fairly easy presidency that would feather his nest turned into something he was completely unprepared and unqualified for with 9/11.

in other words, he was very easy to sway towards the neo-con agenda. he may have wound up there anyway; i believe that's why cheney and company were all assembled for the cabinet to start with. but with 9/11, he was a pushover and converted easily.

bush didn't pick them, they picked him. long before the 2000 election. that's how he wound up governor of texas. you can achieve a pretty successful roll out of any product if you just take your time and follow the steps.

so what i'm saying to you is, it might be worth taking some time and really think about who, and what it is that you are really defending.

there's a difference between the tenets of republicanism and those of neoconservatism.

that said, i've stated several times that i'm not a pelosi fan. she kinda weirds me out to look at. i think the dems could do much better. that doesn't mean i want to see her unfairly railroaded.

and i'm all for getting to the bottom of a lot of things. but if she should testify under oath, so must others involved to be fair.

that's what krauthammer and his fellow travelers are trying to head off.

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@DontTreadOnMe,

So who picked Obama, DTOM? I think the powers that be, did so as well. Any party picks their chosen leader, whats wrong with that? And so did the press, they chose Obama and they are so vested in this guy, it is not even funny. But he is an incompetent, he is in no way prepared to be president, zero.

I would stack Krauthammer's credibility compared to Pelosi, anyday, DTOM. And I would love Pelosi to be put on the stand. But I do agree with some people that it is ridiculous to have to air all of the state secrets and dirty laundry just because this woman, Pelosi, is incompetent and a liar as well, just in the interests of proving it.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

Plus, there would be no motivation here for the CIA to lie about this at that time.

Ah. So in case we'll find out that the CIA has not been telling the truth in this case either, it's probably just another case of "faulty intelligence" rather than some other kind of motivation, right?

CIA inconsistencies, again:

Quote:

Florida's Graham Backs Pelosi On CIA Briefings

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has accused the CIA of misleading her in 2002 about its use of waterboarding during the Bush administration.

Now her fellow Democrat, former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, is also disputing the CIA's version of the briefings that he received at the time. Graham was then chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, while Pelosi was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

How Many Briefings?

Graham is known as a meticulous note-taker and has maintained a daily log that fill hundreds of spiral notebooks, which now reside at the University of Florida Library of Florida History.

"Several weeks ago, when this issue started to bubble up, I called the CIA and asked for the dates in which I had been briefed," Graham tells Robert Siegel. "They gave me four: two in April of '02; two in September."

Graham says he consulted his logs "and determined that on three of the four dates there was no briefing held."

He adds: "On one date, Sept. 27 '02, there was a briefing held and, according to my notes, it was on the topic of detainee interrogation."

Graham says the CIA was initially reticent when he told the agency what he had found in his notes.

"They said, 'We will check and call back,'" Graham recalled. "When they finally did a few days later, they indicated that I was correct. Their information was in error. There was no briefing on the first three of four dates."

Graham says the agency offered no explanation regarding how it came up with the other dates.

Nevertheless, I'd really like to see a full investigation. Let's find out what exactly Pelosi knew at the time, and let's find out what everybody else knew and authorized.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

But he is an incompetent, he is in no way prepared to be president, zero.

he hasn't been president long enough to have evidence of that. the only evidence of anything is that he's a democrat, and i suspect that is what's eating you.

I would stack Krauthammer's credibility compared to Pelosi, anyday, DTOM.

didn't you understand any of what i was trying to say to you? seriously, dude, you keep coming back to me with these things that are simple statements gauged to piss off a democrat. i've never been registered a democrat, so it doesn't effect me..

i vote for the man or woman, not for a party.

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@old europe,

old europe wrote:

Nevertheless, I'd really like to see a full investigation. Let's find out what exactly Pelosi knew at the time, and let's find out what everybody else knew and authorized.

yeah, me too. that's what i could swear i've said a few times, now. the sooner the better, too. we've been letting this kind of **** take up too much time for almost 30 years instead of getting **** done.

and look what it got us. pardon my french, but i'm really ******* sick of it.

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@DontTreadOnMe,

DontTreadOnMe wrote:

i vote for the man or woman, not for a party. [/color]

I've heard people say this all my life. I used to say it. My parents did. I finally woke up to the fact that parties have policies, and if an individual bucks the party line, they won't do very well in Washington, especially Democrats. They can get away with it a little more in the House, but in the Senate, they take the guys out behind the woodshed if they don't toe the line. So, yes, individuals have personalities and beliefs, and character, but most of it bends to the party in Washington. I have voted for a Democrat for County clerk, because she runs a tight and good operation, but on the national scene, party means a whole lot more.

So I have to tell you that when you vote for the person, not the party, you are fooling yourself bigtime, and it is really a pretty naive belief. You are voting for policies, DTOM.

1 Reply

Pelosi Accuses CIA of 'Misleading' Congress on Waterboarding

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