The accusation from
WaPo:
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.
"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.
Congressional leaders from both parties would later seize on waterboarding as a symbol of the worst excesses of the Bush administration's counterterrorism effort. The CIA last week admitted that videotape of an interrogation of one of the waterboarded detainees was destroyed in 2005 against the advice of Justice Department and White House officials, provoking allegations that its actions were illegal and the destruction was a coverup.
Yet long before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.
With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).
The responses from Democrats accused according to
WaPo:
Graham said he has no memory of ever being told about waterboarding or other harsh tactics. Graham left the Senate intelligence committee in January 2003, and was replaced by Rockefeller. "Personally, I was unaware of it, so I couldn't object," Graham said in an interview. He said he now believes the techniques constituted torture and were illegal.
Pelosi declined to comment directly on her reaction to the classified briefings. But a congressional source familiar with Pelosi's position on the matter said the California lawmaker did recall discussions about enhanced interrogation. 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.
Harman, who replaced Pelosi as the committee's top Democrat in January 2003, disclosed Friday that she filed a classified letter to the CIA in February of that year as an official protest about the interrogation program. Harman said she had been prevented from publicly discussing the letter or the CIA's program because of strict rules of secrecy.
"When you serve on intelligence committee you sign a second oath -- one of secrecy," she said. "I was briefed, but the information was closely held to just the Gang of Four. I was not free to disclose anything."
Roberts declined to comment on his participation in the briefings. Rockefeller also declined to talk about the briefings, but the West Virginia Democrat's public statements show him leading the push in 2005 for expanded congressional oversight and an investigation of CIA interrogation practices. "I proposed without success, both in committee and on the Senate floor, that the committee undertake an investigation of the CIA's detention and interrogation activities," Rockefeller said in a statement Friday.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former Vietnam War prisoner who is seeking the GOP presidential nomination, took an early interest in the program even though he was not a member of the intelligence committee, and spoke out against waterboarding in private conversations with White House officials in late 2005 before denouncing it publicly.
So McCain who sponsored that disastrous bill last year is given a shout out for having spoken out against waterboarding in private? WTF? The Internets is abuzz with stories about Democratic complicity.
From
Andrew Sullivan:
Pelosi's response to the accusation is the weakest. Harman's the strongest - she claims she sent a classified letter in opposition in February 2003; Bob Graham says he was not briefed on the matter and mercifully now says that there is no doubt that waterboarding is torture. Rockefeller hasn't commented. At best, it seems to me, Democratic resistance to these war crimes was anodyne.
Here are recent comments from Democrats on Bush's torture program (made during the Mukasey confirmation debate):
Senator Leahy:
In refusing to say we do not waterboard prisoners, what do we do? We end up giving license to others. When the United States cannot state unequivocally that waterboarding is torture and illegal and will not be tolerated, what does that mean for other Governments? What comfort does that provide the world's most repressive regimes? How does it allow the United States, that hitherto has been a beacon for human rights, to criticize or lecture these repressive regimes that torture that way?
Some have sought to find comfort in Judge Mukasey's personal assurance that he would enforce a future, some kind of new law against waterboarding if Congress were to pass one. Even some in the press have used that talking point from the White House. Any such prohibition would have to be enacted over the veto of this President, a President who has not ruled out the use of waterboarding.
But the real damage in this argument is not its futility. The real harm is that it presupposes we don't already have laws and treaty obligations against waterboarding. As we know, when we enter a treaty, it becomes the law of the land. We have laws already against it. We don't need a new law. No Senator should, with any kind of clear conscience, abet this administration's legalistic obfuscations by those, such as Alberto Gonzales, who take these positions, or John Yoo and David Addington, by agreeing somehow that the laws we already have on the books do not already make waterboarding illegal. We have been properly prosecuting water torture for more than 100 years.
Vote for the nominee or vote against the nominee, but don't hide behind some kind of a cloak and say maybe we should have a law in the future. We have that law. This is as if, when somebody murders somebody with a baseball bat, they were to say: We had a law against murder, but we never mentioned baseball bats. Murder is murder; torture is torture. Our laws make both illegal, and our laws--but especially our values--do not permit this to be an open question or even one that depends on who is doing the waterboarding. We cannot say it is wrong when other countries do it but, of course, it is right when we do it because our heart is pure. That is a prescription for disaster. That is what heightens the risk to American citizens and soldiers around the world, and it gives repressive regimes comfort, and that is something I will not do.
I will not accept this fallacious argument. I will not accept this pretense that it is OK because we have not yet passed a law, when that has always been the law in the United States. It was in Theodore Roosevelt's day, it was when we prosecuted Japanese soldiers after World War II for waterboarding, and it is today.
<...>
That is why I was so disappointed by Judge Mukasey's answers suggesting that he sees little occasion to check the President's power. I was disturbed by his insistence that, with regard to warrantless wiretapping and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the President has inherent authority outside of the statute and could authorize and immunize conduct contrary to the law. I fail to see a valid distinction justifying his assertion that the President could have the power of an executive override in the surveillance context, but not in the torture context, and I worry about where his reasoning could lead us.
PDFSenator Boxer:
I have respect for Judge Mukasey's background, his dedication to public service, his reputation as a distinguished jurist, and as a good man. But when evaluating our Nation's chief law enforcement official, we must weigh far more than background and likability. Particularly now--particularly now--when we are following the disastrous tenure of Alberto Gonzales, particularly now, when we have lost so much more leadership in the world because of what is happening in Iraq, and, unfortunately, what has happened in Abu Ghraib, we need to look past likability and qualifications.
We must firmly believe our next Attorney General must always put his loyalty to the Constitution above his loyalty to the President. We have a President and a Vice President who have dangerously abused their Executive power and who have undermined the public trust. This is not a partisan opinion.
Listen to what John Dean, White House Counsel to President Richard Nixon, wrote:
Not since Nixon left the White House have we had such greed over presidential power, and never before have we had such political paranoia. ..... History never exactly repeats itself, but it does some rather good imitations.
When an administration spies on its own citizens without a warrant, strips habeas corpus rights from those held by America, and fires its own U.S. attorneys for political reasons, that is a shocking abuse of Executive power.
When an administration thinks it can just ignore an entire coequal branch of Government, even using signing statements to reinterpret or disregard more than 750 laws that Congress has passed, that is a shocking abuse of Executive power.
When an administration silences its own officials, rewriting testimony, redacting testimony, shelving reports, refusing to let experts publicly speak the truth, that is a shocking abuse of Executive power.
I have seen this so many times with this administration. The latest time was with global warming experts whose truths the White House find ``inconvenient.'' And what did they do? They redacted testimony of the CDC Director, the Center for Disease Control Director, when we asked her to come before the Environment Committee of the Senate and tell us what would the health effects of unfettered global warming be. What would happen? The White House muzzled her by slashing her testimony. They gave all kinds of excuses as to why it was done. None of them were real.
Then, when I wrote to the President, and I said: Mr. President, we need to hear what Dr. Gerberding has to say about the impacts of global warming on the health of our people; Mr. Fielding, White House Counsel, wrote back: Oh, gee, we are not going to send you her original testimony you have asked for. Oh, no, that would be an abuse of executive privilege. Let me restate that: That would be an abuse of the separation of powers. And he asserted executive privilege. Imagine asserting executive privilege for something like the health effects of global warming. It is unbelievable.
So now we need an Attorney General who is going to be the people's lawyer, not the President's lawyer, not the one who is going to tell us: Oh, yeah, we just cannot do anything about it, Congress.
We need an Attorney General who is going to check this unprecedented abuse of power, not rubberstamp it.
<...>
Waterboarding, under any circumstances, represents a clear violation of U.S. law.
Waterboarding today is not a hypothetical. It is used in Burma against supporters of democracy. Waterboarding is an unconstitutional form of cruel and inhumane treatment. It is illegal under U.S. laws--from the Torture Act, which prohibits acts ``specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering,'' to the Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibits ``cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.''
It is illegal under international laws, such as the Geneva Conventions, which are not quaint.
Those conventions prohibit cruel, humiliating, and degrading treatment.
Following World War II, the United States convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and allied POWs. Let me repeat: Following World War II, the United States convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and allied POWs. What kind of statement are we hearing from Judge Mukasey ? Our law and our history are crystal clear, so why can't Judge Mukasey state in unequivocal terms that waterboarding is torture and that is illegal?
PDFSenator Sanders:
For the last 6 years, it is clear that we have had a President who does not understand what the Constitution of the United States is about. What this President believes, essentially, is that he can do anything he wants, at any time, against anybody in the name of fighting terrorism. And he happens to believe the war on terrorism is unending. It is going to go on indefinitely. I think it is very important that we have an Attorney General who can explain the Constitution to a President who clearly does not understand it. Unfortunately, Mr. Mukasey is not that person.
In the last 6 years under President Bush, we have seen the National Security Agency start a program which allows wiretapping without first obtaining a court order, to my mind, in violation of the Constitution. We have seen personal records that have been extensively mined for data. How many millions? Who knows? Nobody in the Senate really knows. We don't have access to that information. It is massive amounts of data mining, in clear violation of the privacy rights and the laws of America under this President.
We have seen the phenomenon of extraordinary rendition, which has shifted detainees to prisons in countries abroad which allow torture. We have seen the firing and the politicization of the Office of the U.S. Attorney. We have seen detainees of the United States being denied the oldest right in the Western legal system--the right to habeas corpus. We are running a prison camp in Guantanamo where prisoners have minimal legal rights, which is an international embarrassment for us as we struggle against international terrorism. And we have seen many other assaults by this President on our constitutional rights and on the laws of this country.
We have a President who clearly does not understand the separation of powers; that the Congress of the United States is an equal branch of our Government; that the Judiciary is an equal branch of our Government; that the executive branch does not have all of the power.
<...>
I have heard some of my colleagues say, if we reject Mr. Mukasey , the President is not going to send us another nominee. That is the right of the President of the United States. But we have our rights as well. We have the right to demand an Attorney General who supports, strongly, the Constitution and is prepared to tell the President when he is acting against our Constitution. That is our right. It is about time we began to defend our right.
I can't blame the President for taking over the rights of Congress, if Congress is not prepared to stand up and fight back. I think that time is long overdue.
Mr. President, if you do not want to send us another nominee, that is your right. We have our rights as well. I will be voting against Mr. Mukasey . I hope my colleagues do as well.
PDFIn 2006, Kerry spoke out in opposition to the
McCain, Warner, Graham bill on torture.
There are many Democrats on record who have spoken out about Bush's torture program over the past few years. As Kerry said: America does not torture. We know Bush does! So WaPo comes along and shifts the focus back to Democrats with this BS story. Why? This story has no relevance to the current discovery, which is the coverup of torture. Why would they destroy tapes showing them engaged in techniques that lawmakers saw and had no objections to? Reread the first few paragraphs of the the
WaPo article again. What the hell does all that mean?The article claims the accused Democrats had no objection on that day to something the article vaguely reports, but then claims they've been objecting to it ever since. I call BS on this hit piece and diversion by the media. Let the investigation of this begin (and let the chips fall where they may):
Friday, December 07, 2007
Marty Lederman
After all, haven't they learned from the experience of the past 35 years that it's not the crime but the cover-up that'll get you?
Yes, they have. Let's not lose sight of the big picture. This was not something they did on the spur of the moment. They vetted it with Rockefeller and Harman, for goodness' sake, and then destroyed the tapes after Harman urged them not to do so. And right after Judge Brinkema's orders started hitting close to home and Dana Priest broke the black sites story. (Check out this great timeline from emptywheel -- pay close attention to all that's going on in October/November 2005.) I retract what I said earlier: This was the CIA. They must have gotten DOJ approval (Gonzales, anyway) for the destruction. And the POTUS and/or VP, too. And all of these folks they knew full well what the fallout might be. And they knew about criminal laws involving obstruction. Most importantly, they were actually destroying what might be incredibly valuable evidence for future uses -- valuable for criminal trials, for intelligence investigations, for training purposes, and, most importantly, as a key tile in their vaunted, hallowed "mosaic" of evidence developed to construct an accurate story about al Qaeda.
And yet they chose to destroy anyway, after what must have been a lot of internal debate. Which goes to show that . . . the cover-up is not worse than the crime, and they knew it. Those tapes must have depicted pretty gruesome evidence of serious criminal conduct. Conduct that would be proof positive of serious breaches of at least two treaties. Conduct approved and implemented at the highest levels of government.
Remember, this was late 2005. By this point, they all knew damn well that "the Commander in Chief has the constitutional authority to violate the Torture Act and the Geneva Conventions" would not be viewed as a very compelling defense. Worse yet, their other defense would have been: "A 35-year-old deputy assistant attorney general by the name of John Yoo orally advised me that this was legal."
Obstruction of justice, and the scandal we're about to witness, was a price they concluded was well worth paying.
The Washington Post reports that in Sept. 2002, a bipartisan group of four congressional members — including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) — met to
get a “first look” at the the CIA’s harsh interrogation practices:
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. <…>
Pelosi declined to comment directly on her reaction to the classified briefings. But a congressional source familiar with Pelosi’s position on the matter said the California lawmaker did recall discussions about enhanced interrogation. 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.
The Post reports the CIA gave about 30 private briefings between 2002-03 on its interrogation practices. Former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham (D-FL) said “he has no memory of ever being told about waterboarding or other harsh tactics.” In Feb. 03, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) filed “
an official protest about the interrogation program.”
UPDATE: John Aravosis suggests the story was leaked by the Bush administration
to embarrass Pelosi.
By: Nicole Belle on Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 6:30 AM - PST
When I first read this report, I admit that I got angry. Then I got smart. Look carefully at the names named in this report. Isn’t it interesting that the WaPo reporters made sure to point out the Democrats in attendance when Congress was still operating under a Republican majority? Hmmm….who do you suppose could have leaked this story to the press to perhaps deflect from their own negative stories?
No matter how you slice it, there’s some serious ’splaining that needs to be done, but the lopsidedness of this article makes me more than a little leery of its accuracy.
moreBegin the accountabilty: torture, FISA and
Whitehouse's revelation, Iraq and all the Bush admin's llegal activities of the past seven years!