Do you believe Panetta or Pelosi?

[jimnyc]

Do you believe Obama's current CIA director or the woman who needed millions to save the mice?

Panetta to CIA employees: We told Pelosi the truth


CIA Director Leon Panetta just sent a stern message to his employees defending the agency against Speaker Nancy Pelosi's criticisms.
His message: We didn't mislead Congress; stay focused on your job.
Panetta's note was sent to reporters via the CIA press office. Here's the key graph:

"Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.” Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened."


http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennt...h.html?showall

[red states rule]

and how do Dems respond Jim? By smearing the men and women who work for the CIA and keep the country safe. Seems the Dems will defend the lies of Pelosi at the expense of the employees of the CIA

How will Panetta respond to this smear?



Democrats: CIA Is Out To Get Us
Politico: Dems Charge CIA With Trying To Deflect Blame For Interrogations Away From Themselves


Democrats charged Tuesday that the CIA has released documents about congressional briefings on harsh interrogation techniques in order to deflect attention and blame away from itself.

“I think there is so much embarrassment in some quarters [of the CIA] that people are going to try to shift some of the responsibility to others - that’s what I think,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who sat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and was briefed on interrogation techniques five times between 2006 and 2007.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said he finds it “interesting” that a document detailing congressional briefings was released just as “some of the groups that have been responsible for these interrogation techniques were taking the most criticism.”

Asked whether the CIA was seeking political cover by releasing the documents, Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said: “Sure it is.”

The CIA has long been on the receiving end of harsh rebukes from Congress - on intelligence failures leading up to the war in Iraq, on secret prisons abroad and on the harsh interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects. But with the release of records showing that it briefed members of Congress along the way, the CIA has effectively put lawmakers on the defensive.

Intelligence officials insist it wasn’t intentional and have not taken responsibility for publicly releasing the documents.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/...n5010101.shtml

[April15]

Do you believe Obama's current CIA director or the woman who needed millions to save the mice?

Panetta to CIA employees: We told Pelosi the truth


CIA Director Leon Panetta just sent a stern message to his employees defending the agency against Speaker Nancy Pelosi's criticisms.
His message: We didn't mislead Congress; stay focused on your job.
Panetta's note was sent to reporters via the CIA press office. Here's the key graph:

"Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.” Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened."


http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennt...h.html?showall

Leon and Nancy go WAY back. Panetta is trying to get the intelligence agency's reputation out of the gutter and Nancy is most likely covering her butt.

[red states rule]

Leon and Nancy go WAY back. Panetta is trying to get the intelligence agency's reputation out of the gutter and Nancy is most likely covering her butt.

So if you believe San Fran Nan April, the CIA now given briefings on things they do not do

Has it ever crossed your "mind" April that Obama is behind the leaking of the CIA briefings as to get San Fran Nan out of the way?

Or is all this another vast right wing conspiracy to smear the rep of poor San Fran Nan?

[Silver]

Leon and Nancy go WAY back. Panetta is trying to get the intelligence agency's reputation out of the gutter and Nancy is most likely covering her butt.

The agency has a stellar reputation except with you and Pe-u-ci...
Pe u's lies are so obvious its laughable to see watch the pinheads try to defend her....
Have no fear...the Dim's own the government and mainstream media...nothing will come of it all....

[Kathianne]

and how do Dems respond Jim? By smearing the men and women who work for the CIA and keep the country safe. Seems the Dems will defend the lies of Pelosi at the expense of the employees of the CIA

How will Panetta respond to this smear?



Democrats: CIA Is Out To Get Us
Politico: Dems Charge CIA With Trying To Deflect Blame For Interrogations Away From Themselves


Democrats charged Tuesday that the CIA has released documents about congressional briefings on harsh interrogation techniques in order to deflect attention and blame away from itself. ...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/...n5010101.shtml

Jim's link was from Friday, 15 May:

May 15, 2009
Categories: Intelligence

Panetta to CIA employees: We told Pelosi the truth
CIA Director Leon Panetta just sent a stern message to his employees defending the agency against Speaker Nancy Pelosi's criticisms.

It wasn't the dems responding to Panetta, it was the response to what Pelosi said...

[April15]

So if you believe San Fran Nan April, the CIA now given briefings on things they do not do

Has it ever crossed your "mind" April that Obama is behind the leaking of the CIA briefings as to get San Fran Nan out of the way?

Or is all this another vast right wing conspiracy to smear the rep of poor San Fran Nan?

If you had a mind you could understand the dialect of English I use.

[Kathianne]

I found this amusing and indicates another fracture in the Democrat run government:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05162009...kle_169535.htm

CIA Director Leon Panetta yesterday let House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a fellow Democrat, have it with both barrels.

Without naming his one-time House colleague -- who, a day earlier, had charged that Panetta's agency "mislead[s] us all the time" -- the CIA chief sent an agency-wide memo citing "the long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business."

As for Pelosi's accusation that the agency lied about what she'd been told in 2002 about waterboarding, Panetta said:

"It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress . . . CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing 'the enhanced techniques that had been employed.' "

Over at the White House, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs pointedly declined an opportunity to defend Pelosi, citing President Obama's call to "look forward."

Take that, Nancy.

Actually, Washington has never seen anything like Pelosi's ever-shifting tales of what she'd been told of CIA interrogation techniques. Even Richard Nixon didn't have this much trouble explaining what he knew and when he knew it....

[Mugged Liberal]

I found this amusing and indicates another fracture in the Democrat run government:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05162009...kle_169535.htm

As often happens, I think the answer lies somewhere in between. No CIA briefing is going to admit
to torturing detainees to using waterboarding except in controlled circumstance ( love the euphemism).

And at this late stage no Democrat of any significance will admit being briefed on the methods used. It’s all partisan politics and unfortunately, like many of the exchanges on this board, descends to “you lied” No you lied” Sometimes I’m tempted to say “A plague on both your houses”. Tactically speaking Pelosi’s original press conference was an overreach and received the expected sharp reaction. It’s bad fortune for the Democrats that Pelosi has no charisma but does display an unpleasant acerbic disposition (even when she’s trying to be pleasant) which probably turns off even her supporters. For the Republicans, she’s the gift that keeps on giving.

The part about waterboarding that most disturbs me is the number of times it has been used in certain situations. Many would agree (although not many on this board) that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques are a slippery slope toward no holds barred torturer. If waterboarding was administered 83 times what makes the interrogators believe that waterboarding number 47 will work when 46 didn’t.

[Kathianne]

As often happens, I think the answer lies somewhere in between. No CIA briefing is going to admit
to torturing detainees to using waterboarding except in controlled circumstance ( love the euphemism).

And at this late stage no Democrat of any significance will admit being briefed on the methods used. It’s all partisan politics and unfortunately, like many of the exchanges on this board, descends to “you lied” No you lied” Sometimes I’m tempted to say “A plague on both your houses”. Tactically speaking Pelosi’s original press conference was an overreach and received the expected sharp reaction. It’s bad fortune for the Democrats that Pelosi has no charisma but does display an unpleasant acerbic disposition (even when she’s trying to be pleasant) which probably turns off even her supporters. For the Republicans, she’s the gift that keeps on giving.

The part about waterboarding that most disturbs me is the number of times it has been used in certain situations. Many would agree (although not many on this board) that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques are a slippery slope toward no holds barred torturer. If waterboarding was administered 83 times what makes the interrogators believe that waterboarding number 47 will work when 46 didn’t.

From what I've read, don't know if it comes up to 'torture' in that it appears the detainees knew it wouldn't kill them, yet even those that went through for training have said it wouldn't matter, you still sense you're drowning.

As for the number of times? Don't know if there comes a point that it doesn't work, we'd know better if they released the results, but for explanation:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...892708,00.html

...According to two OLC memos in May of that year by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury, the Agency had informed the lawyers the waterboarding technique was being used on a detainee on a maximum of five days during a single 30-day period. On each day, there could only be two "sessions," in which the detainee was strapped to an inclined bench, a cloth placed over his nose and mouth, and water poured over the cloth — to induce a sense of drowning. In each "session," there could be no more than six applications of water to the cloth lasting 10 seconds or longer. No session was to exceed 40 seconds....

[Kathianne]

Related:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124243020964825531.html

Critics Still Haven't Read the 'Torture' Memos
The CIA proposed the methods. The Justice Department gave its advice.
By VICTORIA TOENSING

....The 1994 law was passed pursuant to an international treaty, the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment. The law's definition of torture is circular. Torture under that law means "severe physical or mental pain or suffering," which in turn means "prolonged mental harm," which must be caused by one of four prohibited acts. The only relevant one to the CIA inquiry was threatening or inflicting "severe physical pain or suffering." What is "prolonged mental suffering"? The term appears nowhere else in the U.S. Code.

Congress required, in order for there to be a violation of the law, that an interrogator specifically intend that the detainee suffer prolonged physical or mental suffering as a result of the prohibited conduct. Just knowing a person could be injured from the interrogation method is not a violation under Supreme Court rulings interpreting "specific intent" in other criminal statutes.

In the summer of 2002, the CIA outlined 10 interrogation methods that would be used only on Abu Zubaydah, who it told the lawyers was "one of the highest ranking members of" al Qaeda, serving as "Usama Bin Laden's senior lieutenant." According to the CIA, Zubaydah had "been involved in every major" al Qaeda terrorist operation including 9/11, and was "planning future terrorist attacks" against U.S. interests.

Most importantly, the lawyers were told that Zubaydah -- who was well-versed in American interrogation techniques, having written al Qaeda's manual on the subject -- "displays no signs of willingness" to provide information and "has come to expect that no physical harm will be done to him." When the usual interrogation methods were used, he had maintained his "unabated desire to kill Americans and Jews."

The CIA and Department of Justice lawyers had two options: continue questioning Zubaydah by a process that had not worked or escalate the interrogation techniques in compliance with U.S. law. They chose the latter.

The Justice Department lawyers wrote two opinions totaling 54 pages. One went to White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, the other to the CIA general counsel.

Both memos noted that the legislative history of the 1994 torture statute was "scant." Neither house of Congress had hearings, debates or amendments, or provided clarification about terms such as "severe" or "prolonged mental harm." There is no record of Rep. Jerrold Nadler -- who now calls for impeachment and a criminal investigation of the lawyers -- trying to make any act (e.g., waterboarding) illegal, or attempting to lessen the specific intent standard.....

[emmett]

It will be interesting to see which road at this potential fork the left will take. Pelosi is vulnerable here. Each day that goes by right now is simply a test to see how poorly it looks so they can decide whether to sack the speaker or obsorb the fallout of engaging in a little spin game to cover her ass.

[mundame]

I guess I believe Panetta --- this was Sept. 2002, when everyone was so angry and wanted war, torture, secret prisons, indefinite detentions --- nobody cared about stuff we cared about later after the war went down the toilet and it became apparent that the entire administration was clueless.

It's exactly the same pattern as the Iraq War --- they all voted for it, then later when it went bad, they said it was all the GOP's fault. Welllllllllllllll------ not quite.

Nancy took on the CIA??? After SEEING what they did to the Bush administration when it tried to blame them? Oh, good move, Nancy.

I'd like to see Steny Hoyer as Speaker; he's from Maryland and he's able and presentable, and he was runner-up to Pelosi in their race for Speaker.

[Joe Steel]

Pelosi's constituents have reelected her a number of times because the trust her. The CIA lies for living.

[jimnyc]

Pelosi's constituents have reelected her a number of times because the trust her.

Yes, they trust her to get as much pork delivered to them as possible, even the fine little mice get a piece of the pie.

The CIA lies for living.

For once we agree, Obama has liars and cheats helping him run the show, too bad Pelosi is MORE of a liar than Panetta, and of course the FACTS only support the CIA's version of events.