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Boehner: CIA Methods No Secret on Hill
The Washington Times ^ | April 23, 2009 | S.A.MILLER
Posted on April 24, 2009 4:34:09 AM PDT by kellynla
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner on Thursday chided Democrats for seeking an investigation of the Bush administration’s treatment of captured terror suspects, noting a long list of lawmakers from both parties were briefed about the use of harsh interrogation methods years ago.
“Not a word was raised at the time,” said Mr. Boehner, Ohio Republican, adding that he has seen a partial list of Democrats and Republicans briefed on CIA interrogation techniques as far back as 2002.
“There is nothing here that should surprise them,” he said.
Mr. Boehner continued: “If you look at the effort that was undertaken by our government after 9/11 in order to make America safe and help keep America safe, it’s clear to me that it was done in a bipartisan way.
“And whether you’re talking about the terrorist surveillance programs, whether you’re talking about interrogation techniques, whether you’re talking about the Treasury program to track this money, all of this information was downloaded to congressional leaders of both parties, with no objections being raised.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
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Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002
Washington Post ^ | December 9, 2007 | Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen
Posted on April 24, 2009 4:39:54 AM PDT by kellynla
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.
“The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough,” said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.
Congressional leaders from both parties would later seize on waterboarding as a symbol of the worst excesses of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism effort. The CIA last week admitted that videotape of an interrogation of one of the waterboarded detainees was destroyed in 2005 against the advice of Justice Department and White House officials, provoking allegations that its actions were illegal and the destruction was a coverup.
Yet long before “waterboarding” entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.
With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...