The Key Waterboarding Question
Here’s the situation, as best as I can understand it.
In August of 2002, the CIA waterboarded Abu Zubayda at least 83 times.
In early September of 2002, the CIA briefed Nancy Pelosi.
The CIA, in the documents that have now come to light, says she was given “a description” of the enhanced interrogation techniques “that had been employed” on Zubayda. The documents don’t say whether that included waterboarding.
So either one of these things is true:
1) The CIA told Pelosi about the waterboarding of Zubayda. But the agency didn’t specify it in the newly-released docs describing the briefing, even though they’d waterboarded him over 80 times during the previous month, something that surely would have stood out to those recollecting what was said. And the agency didn’t specify the description of such extensive waterboarding, despite specifying the use of waterboarding in descriptions of the briefings elsewhere in the documents.
2) The CIA didn’t tell Pelosi about the use of waterboarding, or didn’t convey the scope of it, and hence didn’t include it in their description of the briefing.
Which seems more likely?
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I guess the right have succeeded in steering the discussion again. We’re talking about Pelosi. I’m sure they are thrilled.
Mike, I think it’s also important to discuss what the Dems knew and didn’t know. It’s a key part of the story in many ways…
This whole thing is a big red herring designed to promote the idea that developing the torture policy was a bipartisan effort — “The Democrats did it too!!!” That is decidedly not the case. I disagree that it is a “key part” of the case – it’s irrelevant really, if we are keeping the focus on who developed and approved these war crimes as Bush Administration policy. Unless you can show that Pelosi or other Democrats were principals, then it is a red herring. If any of them WERE principals, then hang ‘em just as high as Cheney and Addington.
Hell if I know which. I doubt we’ll ever know, frankly.
I don’t know, Jones. What if Dems were specifically told about extensive waterboarding — over 83 times — and didn’t object? That seems pretty serious to me. Granted, not as bad as developing the program, but still bad. Am I missing something?
Nancy Pelosi is my rep here in CA-08. (Lotta good that does me!) Let me just say my suspicions here don’t flatter her.
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This tempest about which docs show who knew which details when is just that. To learn that she didn’t raise public concerns over what she learned in secret briefings is kinda ho-hum. She couldn’t; none of ‘em could.
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Also, I remember how I felt in the wake of 9/11. Not too proud of that looking back, but I remember it well enough to cut some people some slack. Especially those who were in no position to do anything about it. Definitely not those who perpetrated it.
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That said, she does appear to be weaseling on this issue a lot. And those suspicions are reinforced by the fact that she is a weasel. Well, maybe not as bad as Harry Reid, but you get the idea.
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“I don’t know, Jones. What if Dems were specifically told about extensive waterboarding — over 83 times — and didn’t object? That seems pretty serious to me. Granted, not as bad as developing the program, but still bad. Am I missing something?”
I agree with you, Greg. If Pelosi knew the extent and didn’t object then the Democrats have big problems here.
Through all the political obfuscation and intrigue regarding torture, I’d hope we as a nation would have a few Statesmen and/or Stateswomen who would be uncompromising on the issue of torture being unlawful and repugnant to our way of life. But, alas, where are these leaders of clarity. Surely they are not the Lamar Alexanders in the Senate – who by the way I see as a (w)holely coward! -Kevo
Well, there are a lot of missing pieces here, Greg, for all of us. However, don’t be put off by my previous comment. This is a great thread to pull on, and it will likely help in the unraveling of this ball of yarn. Hey, maybe we’ll get to see ya on Rachel Maddow again tonight!
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What I’m most disappointed about by Pelosi and crew is their rolling over in the run-up to the war. That’s where their politicianness stood them most basely. In that context, the failure of some Dems to act on classified info seems like a very venial sin..
What could they do? Couldn’t go public, or even tell their fellow reps anything. Complain privately to the Cheney administration? Really? Gimme a break. They had zero influence, and they knew it. Remember, those were the days of the K-Street Project and the Permanent Republican Majority.
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The torture issue is now officially dead. Obama was never going to allow Holder to prosecute anyone anyway, but now that the right has succeeded in making the story about what Pelosi knew, it’s official. The torture issue is dead.
remember, all. that Jane Harman did in fact object at the time, and put her objections in writing. so while public objections were not possible, private ones were.
Greg Sargent:
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“The CIA, in the documents that have now come to light, says she was given “a description” of the enhanced interrogation techniques “that had been employed” on Zubayda. The documents don’t say whether that included waterboarding.”
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Here’s what Pelosi said in April:
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‘”In that or any other briefing…we were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used. What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel … opinions that they could be used,” she told reporters today.’
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Leaving aside whether waterboarding was mentioned in the new documents, she didn’t tell the truth on being told that EITs were used; she lied through her teeth.
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It doesn’t help when people who claim to be “reporting” that the CIA left this or that off of these documents, yet conveniently forget what Pelosi actually said, are doing nothing but covering for the lying being done by Pelosi. The fact of the matter is that shows that options 1) and 2) aren’t valid, and that option 3) Pelosi is lying, is correct.
“What I’m most disappointed about by Pelosi and crew is their rolling over in the run-up to the war. That’s where their politicianness stood them most basely. ”
This is the main problem here – the AUMF. Congress should never have handed that power – which was all but a carte blanche – to Commander CooCoo Bananas.
But the Democrats thought at the time that the people wanted it. That’s my take on it. Commander CooCoo still had high approvals and it was just after 9-11 and Congress was backed into a corner.
“The torture issue is now officially dead. Obama was never going to allow Holder to prosecute anyone anyway, but now that the right has succeeded in making the story about what Pelosi knew, it’s official. The torture issue is dead.”
I think you’re going to officially be surprised because I don’t think it’s dead. I’m not saying there will be any prosecutions, but I don’t think this is going away as a topic any time soon.
How about this, I DON’T GIVE A D@MN WHO KNEW. Round them all up and prosecute the lot of them if they promoted torture. But having said that we still have to deal in reality. Jane Harman sent a letter to inquire about these torture techniques. Did it make them stop doing it? Hell no. Lets say Pelosi and Rockefeller were against it. What exactly could they do? NOTHING. Who could they tell about it? NOBODY. Thats the part that I think needs to be elevated. Greg perhaps you can research exactly the restrictions that are put on the Gang of Eight and the Gang of Four when it comes to maintaining secrecy and also look into what avenues they might have to protest should they disagree with the administration. From what I understand the only thing they could have potentially done was cut off funding, but the Bushies put the funding for that program together with others in the supplemental that would have basically made those who were briefed on torture reveal why they opposed the funding which of course they couldn’t do. Thats the REAL story on the issue of Pelosi and the rest.
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But the fact is THAT shouldn’t even be the story at all. The story should be who ordered the torture, who carried it out, and when will we start the prosecutions no matter what party they are from. The intelligence report should be another nail in all of their coffins, not just some political football used to go after Pelosi. Lets remember something here, when it comes down to it since it was torture, if Pelosi is guilty the so is every other Republican that sat in on those meetings including Pat Robertson, Porter Goss and Pete Hoekstra. Eff it, let em all burn.
“The documents don’t say whether that included waterboarding.”
Some things you don’t write down.
Eli
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The problem is it WAS written down other places in the documents and the documents were put together recently, not from way back then.
Good point.
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Hypothetically speaking, suppose Pelosi had objected but not in writing? (I doubt that she did ‘cuz if she had, she’d be peddling that story now.) Or had expressed misgivings (”Well, I don’t know about that…”)?
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But that’s getting away from your point, which is that the MSM et al. are reading (hallucinating?) more into this than is factually demonstrated. So what else is new? How often are non-denial denials credulously reported as actual denials? All the time. Critical thinking is a lost art within the MSM, and it’s gratifying to find a few oases (like this one) here on the net.
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Let me recommend Josh Marshall’s post on the TPM front page. I’m sure Greg wouldn’t mind
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Of course the Admin wants the torture issue to go away. And forces are in play in Washington to muddy the issue. Witness the idiotic Mika this am on Morning Java. The more the issue can be muddied the better for the ex-Bushies. Pelosi had better decide whether she wants to put out a clear statement, no if, ands or buts, explaining what she was briefed on, the restrictions under which they operated and the problem stemming from the way the appropriations committee was side lined during the war. What we don’t need is Pelosi dithering and parsing . She either knew and could not talk about it; she knew and did not protest it in writing – which she could have done, or she did not want to know the details thus thinking she would save herself grief. But it is “let it all hang out” time otherwise the people with a vested interest in drowning the subject will play their little games using ABC, DEF and FAUX.
Emptywheel, at Firedoglake, is at her best just now showing up the games being played.
Late Update: TPMmuckraker reporting (from sources including WaPo) that at-the-time Senate Intel Chair Jay Rockefeller(D-WV) suffering from Pelosi-like embarrassment, only more so. Can’t say I’m surprised.
“But the agency didn’t specify it in the newly-released docs describing the briefing, even though they’d waterboarded him over 80 times during the previous month, something that surely would have stood out to those recollecting what was said.”
Sure, if they were lefty bloggers intent on emphasizing their most dramatic talking points. However, Zubaydah was subjected to 83 water pours during (IIRC) 5 waterboarding sessions; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was subjected to 183 pours but told the Red Cross he had only been waterboarded 5 times.
Closer to home, Chris Hitchens seems to think he was waterboarded once in this video but my count is six pours of water (draining maybe a pint of water from the container.) His loss – “I was waterboarded six times” would have been a catchier headline.
It is fine for you to believe your own talking points but less reasonable to assume that they have been embraced by all. The CIA might perfectly reasonably have said that Zubaydah was waterboarded in five sessions – is that also wildly memorable?
If I may ask some bonus questions – here is a Pelosi denial:
“Pelosi, D-Calif., sharply disputed suggestions last month that she had been told about waterboarding having taken place.
“In that or any other briefing . . . we were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used,” Pelosi said at a news conference in April. “What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel . . . opinions that they could be used, but not that they would.””
1. Why is it OK if the heinous techniques are proposed but not yet employed? Why didn’t she object in anticipation of the immoral outrage about to be perpetrated under her oversight?
2. She admits to having been briefed on the other techniques but claims that all of them were being discussed prospectively. Why would the CIA brief her on stuff they were planning to do in the future to Zubaydah when they had, in fact, already done it?
Let’s put her, the staffers in attendance, and the CIA briefer under oath.
Jzap – I agree that Josh’s post on this at TPM is useful. I think it’s realistic to assume some level of being compromised spreads in many directions. To me, Greg is right to explore this subject because, among other reasons, not doing so can let Republicans implicate Democrats far beyond what is warranted. It is one thing to design and attempt a justification for torture and implement it. It’s quite another to have a general knowledge that it might be happening: the degrees of culpability are quite different. But if Congressional leaders were aware of it–Republicans and Democrats–we should know that and know their response to it and what prompted that response. The whole thing has to be laid out so we don’t get trapped into this again. We need to know how all the pieces fit together. And, once again, we have to resist the pressure for false equivalency (knowing something = doing everything) whether it comes from the right or the MSM.
ABC: Thanks. I agree with pretty much all you said. Knowing what all went down — who, what, where and when — is a necessary prerequisite to moving forward.
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That said, I’d like to see this issue start coming to the forefront of public attention starting early in 2010 and peaking sometime in the late summer. Enough delay to not sidetrack a substantial part of BigO’s legislative agenda, but not enough to miss the electoral ramifications in November.
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The wheels of justice grind slowly. I don’t mind that, but grind they must. And a thorough and competent investigation will take time. Just consider how long Patrick Fitzgerald took with his Plame investigation. This case is surely at least as complicated.
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Greg,
what you seem to be implying with your “key question” is that there is some kind of equivalence between people who developed, formulated, approved and oversaw the torture program and people who may or may not have been briefed on it in highly classified briefings and whether they wrote or didn’t write about it and did or didn’t do anything about it by virtue of their status on a congressional committee. There is no equivalence whatsoever. I’m not trying to defend Pelosi, or Rockefeller –though I remember when this started coming out in 2006 that most of us were pretty sure that Rockefeller happily went along with the program. Sure, let them take their lumps for not doing whatever it is we would have expected them to do. I have no problem with that at all. What I am saying that it is not a “key question” at all, that your are implying equivalence where there is none, and that this is an irrelevant shiny object that is meant to divert the blogosphere from the ACTUAL issues. Here we go again. THE DEMOCRAPS DID IT TOO!!!!! No, they did not.
Here’s the thing with Republicans. They’ve already found a position on both sides of this, regardless of which way it goes.
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If no prosecutions take place, they’ll claim it is because Democrats realize they will possibly be prosecuted too. If prosecutions do take place, they are partisan in nature.
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Attack attack attack, feign victim, attack attack attack, feign victim. Seems like that is GOP SOP.
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I can understand why the GOP is coming out strong. I think they are being labled as the Party of Torture.
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Not a very nice label if you ask me. I’d like to see some polling on if people think Republicans or Democrats are more responsible for the torture of detainees at Guantanamo. I’m sure that statistic would shake Republicans boots.
The problem is the American public is both for and against it at the same time. I too see this issue fading away. In its place will the upcoming impolosion of Chrysler and bankruptcy of GM – but it won’t occur until another 25 billion has been spoon fed to them.
Disbarring the lawyers at Justice that said it was legal – thats what will happen.
Jzap, you say, “And a thorough and competent investigation will take time.” I think that’s really key. There’s a tendency for people to feel everything should have been done yesterday when this is all so complex, even leaving out any implications for the Obama agenda.
Archetypical example is Glenn Beck, with emphasis on whiny blowhard.
My feelings on anyone who knew about torture and let it pass is the same as my feelings about anyone who voted FOR the War in Iraq: I would hope to see them out of public service. That goes for Dems and Reps. Sorry to blow the talking point for Rush and Co., but it’s true.
By breaking this whole torture story up into bits and pieces, where one thing is compartmentalized as if there was not a “whole” – designed and implemented and now being covered up in so many ways – it only continues the compartmentalization. If I tortured a child, should we allow the fishing line to get snagged on whether or not my neighbor might have been somehow informed and should have alerted the police? The fishing expedition should be done by a Special Prosecutor, who can investigate the whole lake, not just the places where Dems might have gotten into the water too.
Torture? Torture? How about this, we don’t take prisoners; we summarily execute them? The Taliban cut off the hands and feet of their captured enemies and then blind them but allow them to live; they have set the standard.
Knowing about waterboarding after the fact – bad bad bad…..
Structuring, ordering, covering-up, micromanaging torture…pffft?
Enjoy.
This is all about documents composed after the facts, minutes recording recollections from those present. Who were the sources?
The CIA does so many unethical things every day around the world that are approved… It’s no wonder they might use some of those tactics to cover their behinds. Lost documents? I thought _you_ filed those! Torture videos? Ooops! Left ‘em too close to that big magnet.
Pelosi was informed of _something._ Either that it was an approved tactic, or that it was being used. Or something else. It doesn’t matter. Remember, this is people loyal to Cheney, sitting in a room with a few Democrats (individually?) laying down the law on what they’re doing. The attitude could very well be “you’re lucky we’re telling you anything at all.” Plus, the fact that if the Admin green-lighted torture, they most certainly advocated threats: “you breathe a word of this, you’re going down for treason.” Not for torture — but for endangering national security by telling the story, at all.
“Dems did it, too!” Sure, that’s their current ‘argument’. I think most posters have asserted that being briefed on a top-secret procedure is not the same as authorizing, rationalizing, or carrying out that procedure. The fact is, it doesn’t matter. Torture is still illegal and immoral. I don’t care if it worked (it didn’t) or not. I don’t care if Democrats were _involved_.
TheraP has a great point: in a police investigation of a crime, the prime case is investigated. If another felony is brought to light, someone else is put on that case. And, if informants or accessories are found responsible, as well, there may be follow-up investigation. Later. Get the big fish, then work on all the little ones. Waste your time on minutiae, and the big one may get away. Which is what the apologists are counting on.
Personally, we’ve got too many people in power who are too afraid to act whether involved, or not. We need to hand it over to the international courts. I’d be just fine deporting Bush/Cheney/etc. to the Hague for crimes against humanity…
Rhad – don’t forget to include B.O. – he’s murdering civilians in Afghanistan & Pakistan.
It’s NOT Torture; Bush said so!
Under John McCain’s Military Commissions Act of 2003 retroactive to 9-11-2001 Bush is granted, by law, the ability to DEFINE TORTURE FOR MILITARY, CIA, FBI AND OTHERS.
Bush said Waterboarding of prisoners is Legal and NOT TORTURE!
It’s the President’s Legal right under the MCA of 2003 to do as he pleases.
When you hear “when the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal” Remember it was John McCain and the Majority Republican Congress that gave George W Bush that Right.
Now, Congress isn’t willing to Repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2003 because it covers their tails for supporting the Bush Torture Machine.
I’ve been doing some research Donaldd and you appear to have gotten your facts wrong. The Military Commisions Act was not John McCain’s baby (despite the frothy yapping of several bloggers). He was, in fact, trying to work out a compromise bill that differed from the MCA in several key areas. Something was going to be passed to increase the administrations powers in dealing with enemy combatants. It seems that Mr. McCain was actually trying to mitigate it. As a side note, the comrpomise was also sponsored by several key Dems…..
The corporatist media is doing what it knows is wanted from the plutocrats running the show – Blame Pelosi and Dems equally to get the heat off of the CIA and BushCheney Co.