Op-Ed: Did Pelosi approve waterboarding?

It is official. Newly released documents confirm House Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Jane Harman (D-Calif.) were among Congressional committee members overseeing CIA waterboarding techniques since 2002.

Congressional Democrats and Republicans on Intelligence committee were updated through the years and there were no complaints filed by the Democrats. According to new information released by the Obama Administration, Pelosi and other Congressional leaders were repeatedly briefed on the CIA's use of waterboarding to extract information from terrorists that saved lives. The new report contradicts the assertions of Nancy Pelosi that she was briefed by CIA and yet remained unaware that the technique was being used. Pelosi and Obama have come out against any investigations against those involved in the effective CIA interrogation technique, however, they have relentlessly utlized waterboarding torture allegations against Republicans to gain political advantage. A growng number of Americans are expressing growing outrage over the hypocrisy of top Democrats who by virtue of their role in oversight committees had been involved from the outset. According to a May, 8 LA Times report a chart compiled by the CIA indicates that Pelosi (D-San Francisco) was briefed on Sept. 4, 2002, on the agency's interrogation of alleged Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah, and that the session covered "the particular [enhanced interrogation techniques] that had been employed." The chart does not list the specific methods covered during the briefing. But during the preceding month, the CIA had used the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding on Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times, according to a Justice Department memo released last month. The Democrats waged a relentless war on the Bush White House for allowing waterboarding techniques to be used. Obama successfully campaigned on the issue, citing waterboarding as an inhumane torture that was orchestrated by the Bush White House. As President, Obama has refused to even investigate the matter for criminal prosecution. Many say this is because so many high level Democrats are involved. Pelosi claims that even though she was briefed thoroughly by the CIA on the matter, she was somehow unaware that they actually intended to use the technique. At the time, Pelosi was the ranking Democrat on Intelligence oversight committee and never raised an official objection to the waterboarding technique. Later, seeking political gain, leading Democrats made the torture allegations a plank in their campaigns. While Democrats claim they didn't understand what the CIA briefings meant because the CIA did not adequately explain its intentions to actually use the technique, Republicans are claiming hypocrisy. The LA Times article states that "Overall, the chart describes 40 briefings over a seven-year period during which CIA and other U.S. intelligence officials described the agency's interrogation program to senior lawmakers." That leading Democrats on Intelligence committees could attend 40 such briefings and fail to understand the fundamental facts disseminated in meetings is highly unlikely in the view of a growing number of observers. The hypocrisy charge is beginning to stick, but some believe it would require a waterboarding session to extract the truth about what Pelosi knew, and when she knew it. In the LA Times article it is revealed that Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) and other lawmakers were told in early 2003 that the CIA intended to destroy videotapes of interrogation sessions. Harman, then the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has said that she sent a letter to the agency at the time warning that doing so was a "bad idea." The tapes were destroyed in 2005, after the scandal over detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. No evidence of the letter cited by Harman has been found.