Rockefeller lies on torture
Mort Zuckerman
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Subject: Rockefeller lies on torture
Date: May 12, 2009 5:01 AM
"We are not in a position to vouch for the accuracy of the document,"
a Rockefeller spokeswoman said. He "has repeatedly stated he was not
told critical information that would have cast significant doubt on
the program's legality and effectiveness."
LMAO. That means he was told about it, and
was told it was legal, which assumes that
Rockefeller could not figure out for himself
that torture was illegal?
Is that believable, especially for a Rockefeller
on the Intelligence Committee? You would think
torture and intelligence would go together, kinda,
especially after what happened to John McCain,
and especially since the WWII British OSS was based
at Rockefeller Center before it became the CIA.
I don't know. As I kinda remember, there were
trials over this, and then there was the infamous
Unit 731 in Manchuria, whichin I am thinking
the Rockefellers also know about since a lot
of these bioweaponeers from the German bioweaponeer
camp were paperclipped to New York, Rockefeller
Institute, and from what I read, Plum Island and
Yale's CIA bioweapons program.
The Rockefellers worked very closely with the OSS
in their sabotage operations around the world during
the war because of the Rockys global connections.
I'm gonna think that if I know about ^^^ this,
John D IV knows about it all too.
Kathleen M. Dickson
http://www.actionlyme.org
========================================
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/11-8
Published on Monday, May 11, 2009 by Poiltico
Pelosi: Torture Protest Improper in '03
by Glenn Thrush & John Bresnahan
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi learned in early 2003 that the Bush
administration was waterboarding terror detainees but didn't protest
directly out of respect for "appropriate" legislative channels, a
person familiar with the situation said Monday.
[SILENT ON TORTURE -- Steve Elmendorf, who served as chief of staff to
former Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), said that in 2003,
coming so soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it would have been
difficult politically for Pelosi to do more to protest interrogation
techniques the Bush administration was using. Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., walks with Israeli President Shimon Peres on
Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Susan
Walsh)]SILENT ON TORTURE -- Steve Elmendorf, who served as chief of
staff to former Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), said that in
2003, coming so soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it would
have been difficult politically for Pelosi to do more to protest
interrogation techniques the Bush administration was using. Speaker of
the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., walks with Israeli President Shimon
Peres on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 5, 2009. (AP Photo/
Susan Walsh)
The Pelosi camp's version of events is intended to answer two key
questions posed by her critics: When, precisely, did she first learn
about waterboarding? And why didn't she do more to stop it?
Pelosi has disputed a CIA document, released last week, that shows she
was briefed in September 2002 on the "particular" interrogation
techniques the United States had used on Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah.
Pelosi has said she was told then only that the Bush administration
was considering using certain techniques in the future - and that it
had the legal authority to do so.
But there's no dispute that on Feb. 4, 2003 - five months after
Pelosi's September meeting - CIA officials briefed Pelosi aide Michael
Sheehy and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), then the ranking member of the
House Intelligence Committee, on the specific techniques that had been
used on Zubaydah - including waterboarding.
Harman was so alarmed by what she had heard, she drafted a short
letter to the CIA's general counsel to express "profound" concerns
with the tactic - going so far as to ask if waterboarding had been
personally "approved by the president."
According to the Pelosi confidant, Sheehy told Pelosi about the
briefing - and later informed Pelosi, the newly elected minority
leader, that Harman was drafting a protest letter. Pelosi told Sheehy
to tell Harman that she agreed with the letter, the Pelosi insider
said. But she did not ask to be listed as a signatory on the letter,
the source said, and there is no reference to her in it.
Pelosi and Harman, sometimes bitter rivals, have still not discussed
the controversy since it broke three weeks ago, according to
Democratic insiders.
Sheehy has not responded to several calls and e-mails seeking comment
on what he told Pelosi during this period. But the Pelosi confidant -
who spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity - insisted that
Pelosi did all that she could have done.
"She felt that the appropriate response was the letter from Harman,
because Jane was the one who was briefed," said the person. Pelosi
"never got briefed on it personally, and when Harman got a ‘no
response' from the CIA, there was nothing more that could be done."
Republicans aren't buying it.
"If Nancy was so concerned about the waterboarding, why did she let
someone else write the letter?" asked Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.),
the ranking Republican on the intelligence committee. "If she was so
upset, why did she let someone else raise objections?"
Hoekstra has asked the CIA for documents on its congressional
briefings, and he told POLITICO Monday that he has made a request for
e-mails from agency staffers detailing their interactions with Pelosi
and other House and Senate members. Steve Elmendorf, who served as
chief of staff to former Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), said
that coming so soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it would have
been difficult politically for Pelosi to do more to protest
interrogation techniques the Bush administration was using.
"You have to remember, in the 2002 period, the whole atmospherics, it
was all about scaring people every day," said Elmendorf. "People were
legitimately concerned that we were going to be attacked again, and
there was a constant drumbeat coming from the Bush administration of,
‘Bad things could happen, bad things could happen.' Nobody wants it to
happen on their watch."
Republicans have found a rare avenue of attack against Pelosi over the
waterboarding briefing, at a time when the speaker is ramming through
paradigm-shifting legislative proposals on behalf of the Obama
administration. That grilling is likely to continue today when the
speaker returns from a grueling weekend trip to Baghdad.
Still, Democrats are rallying to the speaker - and questioning the
accuracy of the CIA's description of its congressional briefings.
An aide to former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John
Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) took issue Monday with the entry for a Feb. 4,
2003, briefing in which a Rockefeller staffer was reportedly told "how
the water board was used."
"We are not in a position to vouch for the accuracy of the document,"
a Rockefeller spokeswoman said. He "has repeatedly stated he was not
told critical information that would have cast significant doubt on
the program's legality and effectiveness."
Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee at the time Pelosi was briefed, told The Washington Post's
PlumLine blog that he wasn't told of waterboarding then, either -
despite a Sept. 27, 2002, briefing entry indicating he was given
details of Zubaydah's interrogation.
"I do not have any recollection of being briefed on waterboarding or
other forms of extraordinary interrogation techniques, or Abu Zubaydah
being subjected to them," said Graham, adding: "Something as
unexpected and dramatic as that would be the kind of thing that you
would normally expect to recall even years later."
Even so, Democratic insiders acknowledge that Pelosi has not handled
the media furor surrounding the interrogation briefings - and what she
was told and when - in a timely or aggressive manner.
"I don't know whether the story is overplayed or they're misjudging
it," said a Democratic leadership aide. "I don't know, maybe they
haven't been aggressive enough."
This aide added: "I think they're good at walking and chewing gum -
that's not the problem. I don't think they recognized that this issue
has the legs that it does."
© 2009 Politico.com
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