The Conservative Nation

Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi says that the CIA is lying when they say she was informed in the fall of 2002 that Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT), which included waterboarding, were being used on captured terrorists. Not only were they lying about telling her that the technique was being used, they told her specifically that waterboarding was not being used. When a reporter asked whether the agency had lied, Mrs. Pelosi said, “Yes.”

Karl Rove says that Mrs. Pelosi, along with Rep. Porter Goss, were the first members of congress to be informed that the techniques were being used. The information was provided to the pair on September 4, 2002. According to Mr. Rove in his weekly opinion column for the Wall Street Journal:

When questions were raised last month about these statements, Mrs. Pelosi insisted at a news conference that “We were not — I repeat — were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used.” Mrs. Pelosi also claimed that the CIA “did not tell us they were using that, flat out. And any, any contention to the contrary is simply not true.” She had earlier said on TV, “I can say flat-out, they never told us that these enhanced interrogations were being used.” The Obama administration’s CIA director, Leon Panetta, and Mr. Goss have both disputed Mrs. Pelosi’s account. In a report to Congress on May 5, Mr. Panetta described the CIA’s 2002 meeting with Mrs. Pelosi as “Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on [legal] authorities, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed.” Note the past tense — “had been employed.” Mr. Goss says he and Mrs. Pelosi were told at the 2002 briefing about the use of the EITs and “on a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission.” He is backed by CIA sources who say Mr. Goss and Mrs. Pelosi “questioned whether we were doing enough” to extract information.

Somebody is lying, and we will have to make up our own minds as to who it is. I for one believe Mr. Rove, Mr. Goss, and Mr. Panetta since their stories are consistent. CIA documentation describing briefings provided to lawmakers also show that Mrs. Pelosi attended the September 4, 2002 briefing.

In a somewhat related event, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s request to release secret memos judging whether waterboarding and other harsh techniques had succeeded in securing valuable intelligence information was turned down by the CIA. The request was rejected because the documents couldn’t be declassified because they are the subject of upcoming litigation.

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