[NYTr] Secretly briefed, Pelosi did not object to waterboarding in 2002

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Sorry if this is a dupe - What's ironic is that the "sole objector"
Pelosi nudged out of the Intel Committee chair, Jane Harman, is the
sponsor of some of the worst civil liberties-denying legislation on
"domestic terrorism." -NYTr ]

sent by Riaz K Tayob

Raw Story - Dec 9, 2007
http://rawstory.com//printstory.php?story=8505

Secretly briefed, Pelosi did not object to waterboarding in 2002

Pelosi would later boot sole objector to program from chance 
to chair Intelligence Committee

by John Byrne

Two senior Republicans and Democrats in Congress -- including House 
Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- were briefing on the CIA's program to use 
waterboarding on terror suspects in September 2002 and did not object, 
according to Sunday's Washington Post.

In the long-ranging article, which seemingly takes the lawmakers and
the Bush Administration to task by discussing the practice's emergence
in Nazi Germany and other totalitarian states, a Pelosi aide said the 
Speaker remembered discussion of "enhanced" interrogation techniques
and "acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time."

"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," the Post wrote. "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," the Post
added. "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."

Democrats have since been vehement critics of the practice,
piggybacking on public outrage to a practice many have described as
torture -- including 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain
(R-AZ) who was tortured in the Vietnam War.

Only Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) -- then the second-ranking Democrat on the 
House Intelligence Committee who would supplant Pelosi in 2003 -- 
formally objected. Harman, who was set to lead the House Intelligence 
Committee when the Democrats retook the chamber in 2006, was pushed 
aside by Pelosi when she took over as Speaker, in what was seen as an 
element of personal rivalry.

"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," the Post notes. "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."

None of the other lawmakers briefed raised formal objections. Those 
lawmakers included former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), former Sen. John 
Rockefeller IV (D-WV), former Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL) and Sen. Pat 
Roberts (R-KN).

"Individual lawmakers' recollections of the early briefings varied 
dramatically, but officials present during the meetings described the 
reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support," the 
Post added. 'Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full 
understanding of what the CIA was doing,' said Goss, who chaired the 
House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA 
director from 2004 to 2006. 'And the reaction in the room was not just 
approval, but encouragement.'"