CIA: Notes On Pelosi Meeting Don’t Specify Briefing On Waterboarding
None of the notes and memos that the CIA is aware of about the briefing Nancy Pelosi got on torture specified that she’d been briefed on the use of waterboarding, a CIA spokesperson confirms to me.
In the newly-released documents detailing the torture briefings given to members of Congress, the portion describing Pelosi’s single briefing says she was told about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques in general, but doesn’t specify whether she was told about the use of waterboarding. That was specified about some briefings given to others.
I asked CIA spokesperson Paul Gimigliano why. His answer: Because the notes and memos on the Pelosi meeting that form the basis for the docs didn’t allow them to go that far, meaning that they didn’t specify that she’d been briefed on waterboarding in particular.
In a statement to me, he explained that that “the language in the chart” is “faithful to the language in the records.”
“Nothing is being hidden or hyped,” he continued. “CIA is simply being true to the records. That’s all there is to it.”
Here’s what this appears to mean: All the records on this meeting the CIA is familiar with stop short of specifying that she was briefed on waterboarding. Instead, they only state that she’d been briefed on EITs — enhanced interrogation techniques — in general.
To be clear, this doesn’t prove conclusively that Pelosi, who says she was only told of the legality of techniques, wasn’t briefed on the use of waterboarding. But if she was, no one made a specific note of it in any of the records the CIA is aware of. GOP Rep Pete Hoekstra is claiming that he’s seen documents that prove she was told. But the CIA doesn’t seem to have a record specifying this.
We’re getting closer to figuring out what actually happened.
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Hoekstra has one of those super secret decoder rings and the memo was written in dissappearing ink. Just like in the movies!
SG — this seems like a significant development, no?
Greg
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It seems to me like a MAJOR scoop for you. In fact it pretty much kills the ABC News story. However its pretty predictable to me. At least the part where Hoekstra is lying. Twitter is down but I will be tweeting it to all of the MSM folks that I regularly tweet to. ABCNews should catch hell for this.
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The Scoop Factory strikes again!
thx SG, but it still doesn’t prove conclusively she wasn’t told…just means no one made any note of it …
Greg
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But you have to remember that the ABC News story claimed that the report itself proved she WAS briefed on waterboarding. And that she had been caught lying. And thats the way the story has been framed all day on cable news. But thats impossible if the CIA is saying they don’t have any information that waterboarding ever came up in any briefing. Ipso facto then the report couldn’t make any such claim either. Correct?
right, SG, and the report didn’t claim it. and the reason why is they had no evidence to support the claim.
To make it clear
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The absence of evidence does not make an evidence of absense. So I am not saying defifnitively that Speaker Pelosi was telling the truth. What I AM saying is the ABC News story couldn’t have been true because the CIA is now saying they have NO evidence that she was briefed on waterboarding. The ABC News story claimed the exact opposite, that the report proved that she DID get briefed on Zubaydah having been waterboarded. What you just found out makes it impossible that the report proved that.
sgwhiteinfla: Do you care about Speaker Pelosi’s actual denial or only the strawperson of whether she was briefed on waterboarding or not at the September 4, 2002, briefing?
As you should know, the ABC piece claims that “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ on terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah in September 2002, according to a report prepared by the Director of National Intelligence’s office and obtained by ABC News. . . . The report, submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee and other Capitol Hill officials Wednesday, appears to contradict Pelosi’s statement last month that she was never told about the use of waterboarding OR other special interrogation tactics.”
ABC’s reporting seems to be quite accurate. On April 23, the Speaker took the podium and claimed that she didn’t know that ANY of the enhanced interrogation techniques were being used at the time of the briefing: “We were not, I repeat, we were not told that waterboarding OR ANY OF THESE OTHER INTERROGATION METHODS were used.” As it turns out, what did the briefing cover? “Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of particular EITs that had been employed.” Is the leader of the House Democrats colossally stupid, a brazen liar, or both? And is it really necessary to launch a full-scale broadside, buttressed by a strawman, on ABC in order to mask this unfortunate reality?
To quote Joan Walsh again, “the indispensable Greg Sargent.”
Chris L
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Here is what I said.
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So I am not saying defifnitively that Speaker Pelosi was telling the truth
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Reading is fundamental dumb a$$
sgwhiteinfla: I’m quite capable of reading. You wrote: “What I AM saying is the ABC News story couldn’t have been true because the CIA is now saying they have NO evidence that she was briefed on waterboarding. The ABC News story claimed the exact opposite, that the report proved that she DID get briefed on Zubaydah having been waterboarded.” Where does the ABC piece make that assertion? It does not. It claims that she “was briefed on the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’” and that the report appears to contradict her claim that she was not informed “about the use of waterboarding OR other special interrogation tactics.” Only by pretending that Pelosi only denied knowledge of being briefed on waterboarding — the strawman du jour in the liberal blogosphere — can you claim that this ” pretty much kills the ABC News story.”
ChrisL
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You say you can read, but I am not so sure of that.
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http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/05/intelligence-re.html
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We can do this all day. Seriously
sgwhiteinfla: What is it about the disjunctive “or” that is so difficult for you to comprehend (”. . . appears to contradict Pelosi’s statement last month that she was never told about the use of waterboarding OR OTHER SPECIAL INTERROGATION TACTICS.”)? You can continue to direct gratuitous insults about reading comprehension in my direction, but it would be helpful it it was someone other than you who was having trouble with plain English.
Chris L, what is your problem? Do you just want to try to tear Pelosi and the Democrats down on this?
The way ABC reported on it is questionable, thats enough for us to go after them. If they’re going to be offering ammunition like this to the Republicans, they had better have some solid evidence, and if not, we ought to attack them relentlessly.
I’m dissapointed, personally. This whole torture thing was supposed to be a lead in to a real investigation of the entire Bush administration, and we seem to be spending more time talking about Democrats. Chris L, people like you should be ashamed of yourself.
The stupid is strong in that one.
Sorry, Bruce, but I don’t see anything questionable about ABC’s reporting on this one. ABC made clear Speaker Pelosi denied any knowledge of the use of waterboarding or enhanced interrogation techniques and that the CIA’s records show that she was briefed on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. Whether waterboarding was or was not a component of that briefing is, understandably, a point of interest, but it neither undermines the validity of the ABC piece, nor does it breath veracity into Pelosi’s denial.
“Breathe,” not “breath,” that is.
She knew, deal with it. You’re starting to look like brown nosed water carriers by implying that “briefed on EIT used on A-Z” means anything other than what it means. (As in, he was waterboarded and they told her so-DUH)
You’re just feeding into the notion that democrat loyalists will swallow any swill the party delivers to hide the truth.
Admit it. This non-scandal is so over. BO has totally mishandled this garbage. You’re not doing him any favors by keeping it alive. It’s time he cut his losses. Maybe voters will forget before the midterms. And maybe not.
It’s kind of like- “they expected me to be able to read between the lines, and I’m just a poor naive congresswoman”
Here’s a trip down memory lane. WaPo Dec 2007:
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.
Now, you people can dwell in a fantasy world where George Tenet, Clinton appointee, kept the details of EI from Nancy Pelosi is you like…but let’s just say the evidence is not pointing in that direction.
Hmm…this whole “Nancy Pelosi was told about torture” debate is strange. Hey, if she was told and offered a shrug, yes, it makes her look a bit hypocritical.
But the merits of the torture debate do not hinge on Nancy Pelosi’s integrity. If torture is moral –or immoral– it would be so regardless of what she was told or when.
And it’s very strange to hear torture-supporters make arguments like, “Nancy Pelosi agrees with me! How dare her!” It’s comically unserious.
Herb, the point is that this torture thing was supposed to be a REPUBLICAN scandal, the final nail in the coffin of the Bush administration. Now Pelosi and the Democrats are getting dragged in so it just isn’t worth it – what would be the point? What a waste. Even worse, some Democrats have been complicit (like ChrisL) in helping the Republicans make this a “bipartisan” scandal.
You do realize, you’re making yourself a tool of Cheney and his ilk by dragging Democrats into this? You ought to truly be ashamed of yourself.
I mean ChrisL and sgwhiteinfla ought to be ashamed of themselves, not you Herb.
ignorance of why EIT’s where makes her even more culpable. turn the lights on and they run like cockroaches. looking for that dark cover that you provide. you spin! you spin!
Madam Pelosi is a lying sack of **** from the city by the bay saturated by b.s..However she is consistent in that she really believes George Bush & Cheney are the bad guys sent by the devil-republican party to make her life miserable.
Hi there, not sure that this is true, but thanks
EIT = torture. It’s that simple. We are not talking about good cop/bad cop, or shining a bright light in their eyes. We’re talking sleep deprevation and other things – things that are mental abuse – and that is torture.
It’s nice to reduce the word “torture” to a nice short acronym like “EIT” thereby softening its meaning – it’s kind of like saying “collatoral damage” or “soft targets” – but it is what it is – and it is torture.
They knew. They said nothing – they were compliant.
It was a different time – right after 9/11 – I don’t hold it against them – except that they lying about it now.