Nancy Pelosi Blames Cheney for CIA’s Use of “Torture”

Earlier this month, the Senate committee voted to declassify a 6,300-page CIA torture report. The report released findings that criticize the CIAs use of abusive protocols of suspected terrorists. The committee is now claiming that the CIA misled them.

Appearing on Candy Crowley’s State of the Union (April 6, 2014), Nancy Pelosi then shifted the blame from the CIA to former Vice President Dick Cheney saying, “Many people in the CIA are so patriotic that they protect their country in a way to avoid conflict and violence, etc. But the attitude . . . [that] was there came from Dick Cheney.” Pelosi then stated that Cheney “set the tone” for the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation, now labeled torture.

A few days later, Liz Cheney on Fox News defended her father by reminding people that Pelosi was briefed on the CIA programs and that her vilification of former Vice President Dick Cheney was hypocritical:

Liz Cheney expounded upon and then supported the waterboarding of at least two al-Qaida prisoners, Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as the CIA tried to find who was responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attack and to thwart future attacks.

The Democrats—including those who were briefed are now expressing shock over the report as they try to divorce themselves from knowledge much less agreement of it.

In April of 2009, Pelosi denied that the she was informed of the CIA’s use of waterboarding.

CNN’s story revealed,

“Pelosi told the reporters that she was told about the legal justification for the interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, but was never told the controversial technique had been used on any detainees.

We were not—I repeat—were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used.

Of the 40 CIA briefings to Congress reported recently in the press, I was only briefed once, on September 4, 2002, as I have previously stated.

As I said in my statement of December 9, 2007: ’I was briefed on interrogation techniques the administration was considering using in the future. The administration advised that legal counsel for both the CIA and the Department of Justice had concluded that the techniques were legal.’

I had no further briefings on the techniques. My understanding of the briefing I received is consistent with the description that CIA General Counsel Scott Muller provided to Congresswoman Jane Harman in a letter dated February 28, 2003, which states:

‘As we informed both you and the leadership of the Intelligence Committees last September, a number of executive branch lawyers including lawyers from the Department of Justice participated in the determination that, in the appropriate circumstances, the use of these techniques is fully consistent with U.S. law.’

As reported in the press, a cover letter from CIA Director Panetta accompanying the briefings memo released this week concedes that the descriptions provided by the CIA may not be accurate.”

John Boehner, House Minority Leader at the time, asked the Obama administration to release CIA notes taken during the 2002 Congressional briefing session to prove that Pelosi was briefed.

ABC News Rick Klein reported:

“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. 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 details a Sept. 4, 2002 meeting between intelligence officials and Pelosi, then-House intelligence committee chairman Porter Goss, and two aides. At the time, Pelosi was the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee.

The meeting is described as a ‘Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of particular EITs that had been employed.’ ”

(Read the full ABC article: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2009/05/intelligence-re/)

Clearly, Nancy Pelosi lied.

Liz Cheney said in the Fox News interview,

“Frankly, Mrs. Pelosi is somebody who was briefed on the program, she forgot she was briefed on the program, later to admit it.

And I have to say that when I heard those comments yesterday, I was reminded of something that Margaret Thatcher once said about one of her political opponents: Mrs. Pelosi’s problem is her spine doesn’t seem to reach her brain.”

Are the Democrats anticipating these issues surfacing in future elections? Are they seeding their base’s cause and effect thinking to clear themselves and foster Republican retribution of the waterboarding, which was to elicit information to protect the homeland from further attacks?

The CIA timeline revealed that on Sept. 4, 2002, Pelosi received a “Briefing on EITs (enhanced interrogation techniques) including use of EITs on (alleged al-Qaida operative) Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed.”

In fact, Nancy Pelosi, the committee’s ranking Democrat and Representative Porter Goss, then House Intelligence Committee chairman, were the first to receive the report.

As Karl Rove pointed out in his WSJ article in May, 2009,

“If Mrs. Pelosi considers the enhanced interrogation techniques to be torture, didn’t she have a responsibility to complain at the time, introduce legislation to end the practices, or attempt to deny funding for the CIA’s use of them? If she knew what was going on and did nothing, does that make her an accessory to a crime of torture, as many Democrats are calling enhanced interrogation?”

At the time of the controversy, the Democrats’ hypocritically feigned repulsion by the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques”, distancing themselves by stating they had no part in it. Yet they as far back as 2002-2003, the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, including Pelosi, did not raise objections. Let’s remember that it was under the Bush’s administration that most of the al Qaeda leaders were caught, and we had no homeland attacks under the Bush/Cheney watch.

Blaming Bush has lost its punch. The Bush derangement triggers have worn thin even for the Left’s base. So now is it Cheney’s turn? President Bush ignored, dismissed, and walked away from all his attackers, simply labeling them as “just politics”. I’ve observed the consequences to our party and our nation for not responding to the political spin, lies, and falsehoods. Former Vice President Dick Cheney, however is a different breed—as is Liz Cheney. They do respond, with facts. My question is, will the Republican Party be prepared this time to defend the CIA program, or are the Cheney’s are their own?