Friday, May 15, 2009

Why Didin't Pelosi Act?

From Brian Faughnan at Red State:
Speaker Pelosi claims that the CIA lied to her about its handling of terrorist detainees held by the United States. She claims not to have been informed about the methods being used to get information from prisoners. Obviously, this is almost certainly false. Why would the CIA have informed other lawmakers about interrogation methods, but not Pelosi?
But even if we take her at her word, another problem arises. Pelosi does not dispute that she learned about waterboarding no later than early 2003, when her intelligence staff attended a CIA briefing where it was discussed. Since she learned about waterboarding no less than 6 years ago, she had ample opportunity to register objections without disclosing any secrets to the public. That’s because the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence - on which Pelosi served as the senior Democrat in 2002 - conducts closed hearings on sensitive topics, to hear testimony from intelligence community officials. Further, House rules specify a procedure by which Representatives can force a debate on sensitive intelligence matters in a closed session. The most recent such session was in 2008; if Pelosi was so concerned about ‘torture,’ why did she not attempt to force a closed session to discuss it? And why did she not raise it during closed hearings of the Intelligence Committee with CIA officials? (Check out the House rules governing the Intelligence Committee here, starting on page 14.)

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