Republicans (led by Dick Cheney) are fighting every effort to expose the Torture Scandal, with one glaring exception: they are moving at warp speed to "prove" Nancy Pelosi approved waterboarding.
Only she didn't. So they're lying. And so is the Corporate Media.
Abu Zubaydah was the first prisoner waterboarded by the CIA. He was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002. Pelosi received her first briefing on "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" (EIT) on September 4, 2002. But the CIA didn't tell her they had just waterboarded Abu Zubaydah!
Here's what Pelosi said on April 23:
"We were not, I repeat, we were not told that waterboarding or any of these other interrogation methods were used. What they did tell us was they had some legislative counsel opinions. And if and when they would be used, they would brief Congress at that time."
Here's the CIA's vague version of the briefing:
“Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of particular EITs that had been employed.”
It's entirely possible the CIA is wrong when they say they briefed on "use of EITs." But even if we give them the benefit of the doubt, which EIT's did they tell Pelosi about? It's a very long way from loud music and face-slapping to waterboarding. As Marcy Wheeler writes,
even the CIA never asserts it told any Democrat about waterboarding until after the 2004 IG Report came out.
So how on earth could Pelosi have approved something she knew nothing about?
Nevertheless, ABC's Rick Klein is calling Pelosi a liar:
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. Instead, she has said, she was told only that the Bush administration had legal opinions that would have supported the use of such techniques.
The report does not contradict Pelosi's statement because it does not say Pelosi was told about waterboarding in 2002.
Greg Miller of the LA Times peddles similar lies:
A chart compiled by the CIA shows that Pelosi (D-San Francisco) was briefed on Sept. 4, 2002, on the agency's interrogation of alleged Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah, and that the session covered "the particular [enhanced interrogation techniques] that had been employed." The chart does not list the specific methods covered during the briefing. But during the preceding month, the CIA had used the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding on Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times, according to a Justice Department memo released last month.
Just because the CIA used waterboarding doesn't mean they actually told Pelosi about it! Does anyone at the CIA say they actually did? No! Miller relies entirely on assumption, not evidence.
Republican congressional officials familiar with the document and other still-classified records on congressional briefings said it would have been negligent for CIA briefers to fail to mention the use of waterboarding after Abu Zubaydah had been subjected to the method so extensively.
Just because it "would have been negligent" doesn't mean the CIA wasn't ... negligent! In the fall of 2002, the CIA was aiding and abetting Bush's flat-out lies about Iraq. Of course that's how the U.S. got sucked into the disastrous invasion.
Take action! Email greg.miller@latimes.com
