http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090514/ap_on_go_co/us_pelosi_torture

Pelosi says Bush team misled her on waterboarding
AP


Pelosi Bush team misled her on waterboarding Play Video AP – Pelosi Bush team misled her on waterboarding

* Pelosi Accuses CIA of Giving Bad Info on Torture Play Video Video:Pelosi Accuses CIA of Giving Bad Info on Torture ABC News
*

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif. speaks as President Barack Obama and Rep. AP – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif. speaks as President Barack Obama and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. …
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 3 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Under strong attack from Republicans, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA and Bush administration of misleading her about waterboarding detainees in the war on terror and sharply rebutted claims she was complicit in its use.

"To the contrary ... we were told explicitly that waterboarding was not being used," she told reporters, referring to a formal CIA briefing she received in the fall of 2002.

Pelosi said she subsequently learned that other lawmakers were told several months later by the CIA about the use of waterboarding.

"I wasn't briefed, I was informed that somebody else had been briefed about it," she said.

The House's top Democrat made her comments at a news conference where she was peppered with questions about her knowledge of a technique she and others have called torture. Republicans have insisted in recent weeks that Pelosi and other Democrats knew waterboarding was in use, but made no attempt to protest.

In a written response issued moments after Pelosi spoke, an official at the CIA neither disputed nor accepted the California Democrat's statements.

Instead, George Little, head of the CIA office of public affairs, said it would be up to Congress to determine whether notes made by agency personnel at the time they briefed lawmakers were accurate. He said the notes could be made available at the CIA "for staff review."

Pelosi renewed her call for a so-called truth commission to investigate the events in the Bush administration that led to the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques. While President Barack Obama has banned waterboarding, calling it torture, he has been notably cool toward an independent inquiry that might distract attention from his domestic agenda.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also has expressed opposition, as have congressional Republicans.

Pelosi was particularly harsh in describing the CIA.

"They mislead us all the time," she said. And when a reporter asked whether the agency lied, she did not disagree.

She also suggested that the current Republican criticism marked an attempt to divert attention from the Bush administration's actions.

"They misrepresented every step of the way, and they don't want that focus on them, so they try to turn the attention on us," she said.

Pelosi contended that Democrats did what they could to stop the use of waterboarding. The senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, who received the 2003 briefing on the practice, sent the CIA a formal letter of protest, she said.

But Pelosi defended her own lack of action on the issue, saying her focus at the time was on wresting congressional control from Republicans so her party could change course.

"No letter could change the policy. It was clear we had to change the leadership in Congress and in the White House. That was my job — the Congress part," Pelosi said.

The lone Republican who sat in on the hearing portrayed the testimony as politically motivated and warned that any future inquiries into should also focus on what members of Congress knew at the time that harsh interrogation tactics were being employed.

And he wasn’t afraid to highlight that Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefed early on about the program.

“I don’t want to go retry Nancy Pelosi, that’s not my goal,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), top Republican on the Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts. “But if you’re going to accuse these people in the Bush administration of being evil or of committing a crime, and she was told about it – I want to know what she was told.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The above is from your other post..seems the two articles contradict each other on Pelosi's knowledge.
JUst my personal observation........

May 14, 2009, 12:33 pm
Pelosi Acknowledges She Was Told of Waterboarding in 2003
By Carl Hulse AND Brian Knowlton

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
www.nytimes.com
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi discussed what she knew about harsh questioning of terror detainees during a news conference on Thursday.
Update | 3:21 p.m.
Under fire from Republicans for what she knew about harsh questioning of terror detainees, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday acknowledged that she had learned in 2003 that the C.I.A. had subjected suspects to waterboarding, but she asserted that the agency had misled Congress about its techniques.

At a tense press conference, Ms. Pelosi said for the first time that a staff member alerted her in February 2003 that top lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee had been briefed on the use of tough interrogation methods on terror suspects.

But she said the fact that she did not speak out at the time due to secrecy rules did not make her complicit in any abuse of detainees. She accused the C.I.A. and Bush administration of lying to Congress about what was actually transpiring with the detainees.

“I am saying that the C.I.A. was misleading the Congress and at the same time the administration was misleading the Congress on weapons of mass destruction,” Ms. Pelosi said.

Ms. Pelosi said she was told at that briefing that waterboarding, one of the most controversial of the harsh techniques employed, was not being used.

The C.I.A., reacting to Ms. Pelosi’s remarks, said that agency records declassified last week and cited by congressional Republicans show that Ms. Pelosi had taken part in a September 2002 briefing on interrogation techniques was “true to the language in the Agency’s records.”

An agency spokesman, George Little, added that the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, had pointed out in a recent letter to Congress that the information “is drawn from the past files of the C.I.A.” and represented contemporaneous memoranda “and notes that summarized the best recollections of those individuals.”

According to the C.I.A. records, Ms. Pelosi attended the Sept. 4 briefing about the agency’s interrogation techniques with her Republican counterpart, Representative Porter J. Goss of Florida. Based on agency notes from the briefing, the two lawmakers were told the specific techniques “that had been employed” on Abu Zubaydah.

By then, that C.I.A. already used a number of harsh methods on Mr. Zubaydah, including waterboarding.

The C.I.A. records do not list the individual techniques that lawmakers were told about. However, in an op-ed last month, Mr. Goss said he remembers being told specifically about waterboarding during the September 2002 briefing.

“I am slack jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as “waterboarding” were never mentioned,” Mr. Goss wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

Other Republicans took sharp issue with the speaker’s remarks.

“The speaker’s comments continue to raise more questions than provide answers,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican minority leader. “It’s pretty clear that they were well aware of what these enhanced interrogation techniques were; they were well aware that they’d been used; and it seems to me that they want to have it both ways. You can’t have it both ways.”

Senator Kit Bond of Missouri, vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, issued a more scathing response.


“It’s outrageous that a member of Congress would call our terror-fighters liars,” he said in a statement released by his office. “Instead of prosecuting or persecuting, our country should be supporting our intelligence professionals who work to keep us safe.”

The Republican-driven furor over what Ms. Pelosi knew about waterboarding and other techniques has put the speaker on the defensive. She repeatedly referred to a carefully prepared statement to respond to multiple questions at the session with reporters.

Ms. Pelosi blamed the dispute on Republicans and others, saying they are trying to shift attention from those who authorized the interrogations and other tactics now found to be questionable.

Republicans have said the speaker was now criticizing the Bush administration for abusing terror suspects when she herself was aware of it at the time.

“This is a diversionary tactic to take the spotlight off of those who conceived, developed and implemented these policies, which all of us long opposed,” Ms. Pelosi said.

Ms. Pelosi said that at the sole briefing she attended as the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee in September 2002, the only mention of waterboarding by C.I.A. officials was that while it was deemed to be legal, the technique was not being used.

On Friday, Congressional Republicans, citing a new accounting that showed some top Democrats taking part in briefings on harsh methods in 2002, had accused Democrats of full complicity in approving the Bush administration’s brutal interrogations.

The chart said that in a briefing on Sept. 4, 2002, attended by Ms. Pelosi, the interrogation methods that ”had been employed” against a prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, were described. But according to the legal memorandums released last month, Abu Zubaydah had been waterboarded 83 times the month before the briefing, so any objection from Democrats at the Sept. 4 briefing would have come too late.

Indeed, Ms. Pelosi said Thursday that she had learned only after the Sept. 4 briefing that waterboarding had already been used and that some administration experts had questioned its legality.

“We later find out that it had been taking place before they even briefed us about the legal opinions and told us that they were not being used,” she said, referring to the interrogation techniques.

Ms. Pelosi said she had supported a letter opposing the tactics sent in 2003 by Representative Jane Harman of California, who replaced Ms. Pelosi as the top Democrat on the intelligence panel when Ms. Pelosi took over as Democratic leader. But she said that she realized a letter would not change administration policy and said she instead set about to win Democratic control of Congress, then held by Republicans.

“It was clear we had to change the leadership in Congress and in the White House,” she said. “That was my job — the Congress part.”

Ms. Pelosi urged the C.I.A. to disclose the contents of the briefing she attended and said she did not believe there was more she could have done when she learned of the waterboarding.

the way I understand it, the Republicans are taking the heat off themselves.anyway they can~after all (republicans were in control at the time.. maybe a good investigation is in order~but i rather see us move on, it has been outlawed(waterboarding) we see it was illegal and a crime, to me that is enough, those involved will have that following them always..
and the way the article reads pelosi was told after the fact~,waterboarding/torture had already been done~`

This whole thing boils down to the fact she knew about it denied knowing and now it is out in the open.

no it was not told to her, that it was being done(waterboarding) in any of these articles.and not written memos stating she was told~.she learned after the fact,or i missed something~

I think I read she was informed in a CIA briefing in 2002, with her challenging the CIA watch the fur fly now, they will chew her up and spit her out.

she was told that enhancement were being thought of, but was not told they had already waterboard a person 80+ times, I have voiced if she is guilty treat her and all involved the same investigate prosecute all if necessary, but i rather see us move on to more important things

as i have said many times,my point is proven, that torture was done and it is illegal~~ i am through debating the subject~

Thank god !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you thank him(God) Amen

The Times and dozens of other outlets wrote that the CIA also waterboarded senior Al Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah 83 times, but Zubayda himself, a close associate of Usama bin Laden, told the Red Cross he was waterboarded no more than 10 times.
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Once again you are using false quotes on the number of water boarding applacations...this was already proved in another thread..

And me pray to god...my god might be that big ole river behind my house...

no I am using the articles from reliable news sources i have put many here~ 10 times is still breaking the law, and torture.. have never read that, but if you point it out I will read it~

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Was Not Waterboarded 183 Times
SSC on Tue Apr 28, 2009 9:18 pm


Despite reports , Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Was Not Waterboarded 183 Times
The number of times Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded was the focus of major media attention -- and highly misleading.
By Joseph Abrams

FOXNews.com

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
New York Times reported last week that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, was waterboarded 183 times in one month by CIA interrogators. The "183 times" was widely circulated by news outlets throughout the world.

It was shocking. And it was highly misleading. The number is a vast inflation, according to information from a U.S. official and the testimony of the terrorists themselves.

A U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation program told FOX News that the much-cited figure represents the number of times water was poured onto Mohammed's face -- not the number of times the CIA applied the simulated-drowning technique on the terror suspect. According to a 2007 Red Cross report, he was subjected a total of "five sessions of ill-treatment."

"The water was poured 183 times -- there were 183 pours," the official explained, adding that "each pour was a matter of seconds."

The Times and dozens of other outlets wrote that the CIA also waterboarded senior Al Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah 83 times, but Zubayda himself, a close associate of Usama bin Laden, told the Red Cross he was waterboarded no more than 10 times.

The confusion stems from language in the Justice Department legal memos that President Obama released on April 16. They contain the numbers, but they fail to explain exactly what they represent.

The memos, spanning from 2002-2005, were a legal review by the Bush administration that approved the use of waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques." Obama banned the procedure on his second day in office, saying that waterboarding is torture.

Click here to see Memo 1 | Memo 2 | Memo 3 | Memo 4

The memos describe the controversial process: a detainee is strapped to a gurney with his head lowered and a cloth placed on his face. Interrogators pour water onto the cloth, which cuts off air flow to the mouth and nostrils, tripping his gag reflex, causing panic and giving him the sensation that he is drowning.

At that point the cloth would be removed, the gurney rotated upright and the detainee would be allowed to breathe. The technique could be repeated a few times during a waterboarding session; Zubaydah said it was generally used once or twice, but he said he was waterboarded three times during one session.

The Justice Department memos described the maximum allowed use of the waterboard on any detainee, based on tactical training given to U.S. troops to resist interrogations:

-- Five days of use in one month, with no more than two "sessions" in a day;
-- Up to six applications (something like a dunk) lasting more than 10 seconds but less than 40 seconds per session;
-- 12 minutes of total "water application" in a 24-hour period

Bloggers who read the memos last week noted that the CIA's math "doesn't add up" -- meaning that the 12 long pours allowed in a day couldn't add up to the 12 minutes mentioned in the memo, and they could barely even guess how the detainees could have been waterboarded an astounding 286 times in one month.

The memos did not note that the sessions would be made up of a number of short pours -- the ones the U.S. official said lasted "a matter of seconds" -- and that created the huge numbers quoted by the New York Times: 183 on Mohamed, 83 on Zubaydah.

Pours, not waterboards.

A close look at a Red Cross report on the interrogations makes the numbers even clearer.

As the Red Cross noted: "The suffocation procedure was applied [to Abu Zubaydah] during five sessions of ill-treatment ... in 2002. During each session, apart from one, the suffocation technique was applied once or twice; on one occasion it was applied three times."

The total number of applications: between eight and 10 -- not the 83 mentioned in the Times.

Mohammed similarly told the Red Cross that "I was also subjected to 'water-boarding' on five occasions, all of which occurred during the first month." Those were his five "sessions"; the precise number of applications is not known but is a fraction of the 183 figure.

All of those individual pours were scrupulously counted by the CIA, according to the memos, to abide by the procedures set up for the waterboardings.

"[I]t is important that every application of the waterboard be thoroughly documented: how long each application (and the entire procedure) lasted, how much water was used in the process," read a memo from May 10, 2005.

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the only other detainee known to be waterboarded, was not discussed in the memos.

The Times wrote that until the release of the memos, "the precise number" of 286 total waterboardings was not known.

And the precise number of waterboarding sessions is still not known. What is known is that Mohammed was not waterboarded 183 times.

fox news i don't think they are reliable sorry~ that won't work and how do they know? ?

well tough fucking shit gypsy, if I post and it isn't from a news source that writes to your liking don't fucking read it, BUT...don't dispute it, unless you can bring the same article to the table written in a different form from another source.

Bush and Fox...your own personal living hells...guess cause they don't think like you so that makes it wrong...stick your head back in the sand...

I have many articles that say the detaniees were water boarded more than your article (fox)claims,they may be wrong .but the fact is what i said in the beginning and you disputed, that they were waterboarded, it is a crime and it is torture. that was what the complete debate was about, and as far as me not believing something because One doesn't agree with my thinking, I can say the same about you~just because you believe your way doesn't make it right~`it works both ways.

I place a high value on human life, and since information was attained that saved life then , I would be glad to hold the garden hose.

I also hold human life in high regard, but i don't believe in torture, and applying the same things we are fighting against, like terrorism,plus it also states in several articles that torture does not work. a lot was told,and made up to just get the torture to stop~ it is not necessary..

Do you really think the Govt. will disclose all the info obtained ????????? Of course not, to jeopardize the US people ??
Stopping terrorists at any cost is #1 priority. Amazed you are so adamant at not obtaining info that could save lives on our own soil..Strange........

that has never been proven that torture saved lives~

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=7595688

i could not embed this, it only pasted the url to my clipboard, for one thing pelosi is no Leon Penetta .i have always respected leon Penetta.
Hoyer got 40 percent of the house vote when when he ran against her for her postion, i dont think he is backing her on this, , , distrust of pelosi is growing, ppl think she will barly keep her job but its much worse today, i think she may resign as she is a liability to obama . obama has already said he is not pursuing anything against lawyers that have been mentioned, anyway, this interview on the url, is good if u listen to it all, most all new nows is about her stepping aside, like i said obama does not need this, obama is finding out like i said. once briefed on classified national security issues he will sing a different song as we now see him doing.

I agree Rosco.. I haven't read any news today, but i think she should resign,I also think all that were involved still in office should do the same thing~or be fired.

I just read at least ten articles from different news sources that stated torture did not produce anything to stop attacks~or to gain info~~it even cost money with the cia and investigators checking on these false admissions~

gypsy wrote:I agree Rosco.. I haven't read any news today, but i think she should resign,I also think all that were involved still in office should do the same thing~or be fired.

I just read at least ten articles from different news sources that stated torture did not produce anything to stop attacks~or to gain info~~it even cost money with the cia and investigators checking on these false admissions~

Not that it really matters but your first sentence states you haven't read any news today, your second sentence states you just read at least 10 news articles...confusing

i haven't read todays news,until now, but i have articles that state two weeks ago months ago that torture did not save lives and the admissions were false and sent all on a wild goose chase~~

How do you know they were false ? Were you there ? Do you have access to the written reports ? Some news reports stated a plot to bomb LA. was uncovered, some say nothing was uncovered.
At least Obama is going to continue the tribunals.