Pelosi Did Not Disapprove of Torture

Posted by johnhouk on Apr 26, 2009
 John R. Houk
© April 26, 2009

An oft reported theme I have put forth is that Democrats lie. There was a time when only the obvious Left wing of the Democrat Party would indulge in political slight of hand and tell a lie for political gain in the hope the Center to Right would acquire a bad public image. The Democrat fringe was in the mold of Senator McGovern. The McGovernite Dems were an electoral laughing stock. That is because the Democrat Party used to be dominated by Center-Right Statesmen in the mold of Senator Scoop Jackson of Washington State. Those Democrats are long gone.

Now that the fringe Left has utterly taken over the Democrat Party America can expect lies for political public enhancement will be the norm rather the exception.

The Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in her minority leadership role was involved in about thirty meetings along with other Republican and Democrat leadership circa 2002. Those meetings explicitly detailed the enhanced interrogation techniques to be used on Islamic terrorists captured shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan.

Nancy Pelosi is the ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives and third in line for the Presidency if a cataclysmic catastrophe occurs to the President and Vice President. This woman of High Government Office has down right lied claiming there was NO detail given in those meetings explaining the nature of enhanced interrogation techniques.

Here is a side thought: Is it not interesting the Obama Administration is bent on calling Islamic terrorists and the Global War on Terror by long drawn out names obfuscating the reality of America’s enemy? Yet the successful methods to extract information from those Islamic terrorists to keep America safe are “torture.” Can you say political agenda?

Pelosi is being busted in public in the deceitful hypocritical lie to protect her Leftist back-side.

Porter J. Goss a former CIA Director is part of an increasing line of individuals calling Pelosi out on her lies.

Many Joe Americans may ask, “What’s the big deal? Politicians lie for gain all the time. What makes Speaker Pelosi’s lie any different?”

The big deal is part of the Democrat Party road to power was decrying the lack of civil rights for non-State terrorist POWs who utilized heinous brutal torture that cost lives prior to their capture. Using the weariness of the Global War on Terror by the American public, the accusation of torture as an American war crime was used to paint a picture of evil of Republicans who believed in winning rather than losing.

Pelosi is in a position of choosing to lie about any knowledge of what enhanced interrogation techniques entailed OR owning up to the truth proving the Democrats lied there way to the American voters’ hearts.

JRH 4/26/09
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Security Before Politics

By Porter J. Goss
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Washington Post

Since leaving my post as CIA director almost three years ago, I have remained largely silent on the public stage. I am speaking out now because I feel our government has crossed the red line between properly protecting our national security and trying to gain partisan political advantage. We can't have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets. Americans have to decide now.

A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation's intelligence services had no higher priority than stopping al-Qaeda. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA's "High Value Terrorist Program," including the development of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and what those techniques were. This was not a one-time briefing but an ongoing subject with lots of back and forth between those members and the briefers.

Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:

    -- The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.

    -- We understood what the CIA was doing.

    -- We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.

    -- We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.

    -- On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.


I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed "memorandums for the record" suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately -- to the committee chairs, the briefers, the House speaker or minority leader, the CIA director or the president's national security adviser -- and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted. And shifted they have.

Circuses are not new in Washington, and I can see preparations being made for tents from the Capitol straight down Pennsylvania Avenue. The CIA has been pulled into the center ring before. The result this time will be the same: a hollowed-out service of diminished capabilities. After Sept. 11, the general outcry was, "Why don't we have better overseas capabilities?" I fear that in the years to come this refrain will be heard again: once a threat -- or God forbid, another successful attack -- captures our attention and sends the pendulum swinging back. There is only one person who can shut down this dangerous show: President Obama.

Unfortunately, much of the damage to our capabilities has already been done. It is certainly not trust that is fostered when intelligence officers are told one day "I have your back" only to learn a day later that a knife is being held to it. After the events of this week, morale at the CIA has been shaken to its foundation.

We must not forget: Our intelligence allies overseas view our inability to maintain secrecy as a reason to question our worthiness as a partner. These allies have been vital in almost every capture of a terrorist.

The suggestion that we are safer now because information about interrogation techniques is in the public domain conjures up images of unicorns and fairy dust. We have given our enemy invaluable information about the rules by which we operate. The terrorists captured by the CIA perfected the act of beheading innocents using dull knives. Khalid Sheik Mohammed boasted of the tactic of placing explosives high enough in a building to ensure that innocents trapped above would die if they tried to escape through windows. There is simply no comparison between our professionalism and their brutality.

Our enemies do not subscribe to the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury. "Name, rank and serial number" does not apply to non-state actors but is, regrettably, the only question this administration wants us to ask. Instead of taking risks, our intelligence officers will soon resort to wordsmithing cables to headquarters while opportunities to neutralize brutal radicals are lost.

The days of fortress America are gone. We are the world's superpower. We can sit on our hands or we can become engaged to improve global human conditions. The bottom line is that we cannot succeed unless we have good intelligence. Trading security for partisan political popularity will ensure that our secrets are not secret and that our intelligence is destined to fail us.
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 Pelosi Did Not Disapprove of Torture
John R. Houk
© April 26, 2009
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Security Before Politics
The writer, a Republican, was director of the CIA from September 2004 to May 2006 and was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 to 2004.

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