Congress In the Know

You've probably already read the news that key members of congress -- including Jane Harman, Nancy Pelosi, Bob Graham, and Jay Rockefeller -- were briefed about the CIA's "harsh" interrogation methods back in 2002. Harman, who I've oft had occasion to criticize, seems to have acquitted herself the best; lodging a letter of protest, albeit a letter whose text it seems that none of us can see in even redacted form. Pelosi, Graham, and Rockefeller don't seem to have said or done anything.

Andrew's right to note that there's something of a pattern here. John Kerry certainly didn't feel like this was something he wanted to talk about during the 2004 campaign. One question is how much of this is cowardice and how much conviction; would Democrats actually act to roll this stuff back even if they won't take a stand against it? The evidence from the legislative history suggests mostly cowardice, as Pelosi has certainly helped move anti-torture bills through congress, though how she thought she could keep today's revelations under wraps indefinitely is a bit beyond me.

Comments

Cowardice.

Posted by Gore/Edwards 08 | December 9, 2007 5:36 PM

I said this on Kevin's site and I'll say it again here: Jane Harman knew that war crimes, violations of US law, the US Constitution, and US treaty obligations were taking place. Her response was to write a letter to the guilty party, a letter which she knew for a certainty would have no effect.

"I was only following orders, but I wasn't happy about it" isn't a defense.

Posted by Alan in SF | December 9, 2007 5:47 PM

Unfortunately, the Washington Post article Matt is referencing is full of disjointed information about numerous briefings held over a period of years, at which various members of Congress were given various amounts of information about what the CIA was up to.
The actual content of the Washington Post article does not support the conclusion being trumpeted here and elsewhere that " the Democrats" were aware that the CIA was using illegal torture in the form of waterboarding and chose to remain silent about it.
The Post article conflates "enhanced interrogation", " harsh methods", and waterboarding. Of the 3 terms only waterboarding has an accepted definition and is considered torture. Unless "enhanced Interrogation" and "harsh methods" are defined it is useless to argue about whether the terms represent legal methods or torture.

The evidence presented against the Democrats in the Post story is:
1) Pelosi- Page 1 of the story:
was at a meeting in 2002 at which
"Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding"
Page 2 of the story:
"Pelosi declined to comment directly on her reaction to the classified briefings. But a congressional source familiar with Pelosi's position on the matter said the California lawmaker did recall discussions about enhanced interrogation. The source said Pelosi recalls that techniques described by the CIA were still in the planning stage -- they had been designed and cleared with agency lawyers but not yet put in practice -- and acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time."
Once again, the term "enhanced interrogation" has no specific definition and thus could mean many things. It may or may not include waterboarding or other torture.
The information given in the Post article does not convince me that Pelosi was aware of and condoned waterboarding that was being done by the CIA.
2) Jane Harman- Page 3 of the story
"Harman, who replaced Pelosi as the committee's top Democrat in January 2003, disclosed Friday that she filed a classified letter to the CIA in February of that year as an official protest about the interrogation program. Harman said she had been prevented from publicly discussing the letter"
So she replaced Polosi in Jan 03 and filed a letter of protest to the CIA in Feb 03 (within 1 month).
Does this indicate that she condoned torture?
3) Bob Graham- Page 2 of the story
"Graham said he has no memory of ever being told about waterboarding or other harsh tactics. "....
" "Personally, I was unaware of it, so I couldn't object," Graham said in an interview. "
So , if we assume he is lying he is guilty of condoning torture.
4)Rockefeller - page 2
" Graham left the Senate intelligence committee in January 2003, and was replaced by Rockefeller."
" Rockefeller also declined to talk about the briefings, but the West Virginia Democrat's public statements show him leading the push in 2005 for expanded congressional oversight and an investigation of CIA interrogation practices. "I proposed without success, both in committee and on the Senate floor, that the committee undertake an investigation of the CIA's detention and interrogation activities," Rockefeller said in a statement Friday."
So, he got there in 2003, possibly after the waterboarding had been done. Nothing in the story says that he was briefed about waterboarding.
From this we deduce that he condones torture?

Posted by Buzz | December 9, 2007 6:24 PM

The problem with Buzz's analysis is that it conflicts with the party line, that all sorts of things (stress positions, indeterminate solitary confinement, hypothermia-inducing conditions) are "torture." If the party line is going to be that there's just one technique, used three times, that is a little over the line, then the whole issue is a little silly.

Posted by y81 | December 9, 2007 8:11 PM

I would like to know one more key detail: which ones actually "approved" of it, as opposed to simply not talking about it because it was "still classified". The original Post article ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664_pf.html ) -- which, as Kevin Drum says, was clearly triggered by someone with a grudge against the Congressional Dems -- is nevertheless deadly, especially given the confirmation from one of Pelosi's aides that she didn't object to the practice at the time, and Sen. Bob Graham's straight-faced statement that he "doesn't remember" any such briefings (this from the guy who's notorious for recording every single event that happens in his life in a personal diary on a minute-by-minute basis). But -- as the Post says -- besides Rep. Harman actually writing a protest letter, "[Sen.] Rockefeller also declined to talk about the briefings, but the West Virginia Democrat's public statements show him leading the push in 2005 for expanded congressional oversight and an investigation of CIA interrogation practices." And I'd also like to know just which members actually "specifically asked if the methods were tough enough", given that two solidly pro-Bush Republicans -- Porter Goss and Pat Roberts -- were among the members informed.

Still, this little revelation wrecks any attempt to use the torture issue on a simple "Republicans-bad, Democrats-good" basis, or to dispose of it with simple moralistic arguments -- it confirms that a very large number of people will always be tempted to fall back on it whenever they think the country is in "serious danger", as was still the case back in 2002. (No doubt a lot of Democrats at the time also lived in political terror of being accused of being "soft on terror" if they came out against torture at all in 2002, this being the period when Bush was riding highest politically on the issue and we were indeed all still keeping one ear cocked for the next explosion.) And so it confirms that, to get rid of it, we are going to have to emphasize that the MORAL arguments against torture can't be separated from the STRATEGIC arguments against it: that it does no good and in fact is actually counterproductive militarily. Do any of the Democratic candidates have the brains to do this? (And what does this news do to Pelosi's position as House leader?)

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | December 9, 2007 8:19 PM

I think a lot depends on Pelosi's response. It would be great if she said something like "the reason it's not in Graham's notes is that it never happened." Unfortunately, all we get so far is "no comment." Seems odd.

For those who are saying it's straight up Republican disinformation propagated by WaPo, please remember that Walter Pincus is listed as a contributor (page 3, at the end). That gives the article enough credibility for me to believe that the basic story line is true, regardless of the motivations of the people pushing it (which always, in the past, have been known to be pure. Not).

We might also consider the possibility that the story is Democratic disinformation. Harmon does come out of this looking pretty good, and Pelosi denied her that Intel seat, remember....

Finally, for those who can remember all the way back to August... Remember how FISA was gutted? In the dead of night? Right before the recess? That was down to the Dem leadership, nobody else. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt before that, but not after. This story fits right into that pattern. Unfortunately.

Incidentally, Barney Frank would make a fine speaker. All Democrats are not the same as Republicans.

Posted by lambert strether | December 9, 2007 8:32 PM

The piece is almost entirely unsourced, Pincus or not. The only named source is former Senator Graham, who disputes the story. I have a great deal of respect for the integrity of Senator Graham. For Washington Post "officials", not so much. Let's wait to see what else comes out in the wash.

Posted by James, Los Angeles | December 9, 2007 8:39 PM

Take a look at Glenn Greenwald’s revelation ( http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/12/09/democrats ) that Jay Rockefeller and Pelosi (through her selection of Silvestre Reyes) are even more intimately entangled in the torture scandal than the new Post article makes out.

Just lovely. Well, the fact that we can no longer by any stretch of the imagination utilize the torture issue in a Democrat-vs.-Republican political morality play does not remove us of our obligation to get rid of it—and the only effective way to get rid of it is clearly to purge the public, once and for all, of the idea that there are anything more than extremely rare situations in which it might be even STRATEGICALLY worthwhile. Until we do that, the torture advocates will now have a new, tremendously powerful political argument to the voters that we should retain it (as Bryan Preston is already eagerly showing us over at "Hot Air"). The case for the Dems to put some anti-torture military man (Sen. Webb?) on their ticket is now even stronger -- in fact, at this point I’d say it’s damn near imperative (which naturally means that they won’t be smart enough to do it). Once again, there’s an excellent chance that the country will end up acquiescing in frequent torture, and bewailing that fact only decades later, when it’s safely too late to actually punish anyone for it. (See “My Lai, Massacre of”.)

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | December 9, 2007 10:23 PM

y81 wrote at 8:11 PM
"The problem with Buzz's analysis is that it conflicts with the party line, that all sorts of things (stress positions, indeterminate solitary confinement, hypothermia-inducing conditions) are "torture." If the party line is going to be that there's just one technique, used three times, that is a little over the line, then the whole issue is a little silly."

There's nothing silly about the issue of torture.
If the United states is going to accept waterboarding, which is unquestionably torture in the legal sense, then any discusion of stress positions etc. is irrelevant.
And speaking of party lines on torture, the Republican party line is either "it's not torture when we do it" (Bush) to "we can torture anyone we want to " (most other Republican ideologues).
I'm sure that there are Republicans other than Mcain who think that torture is Un-American but they sure don't get much support from the powers that be.
Buzz

Posted by buzz | December 9, 2007 10:27 PM

Kerry's campaign considered using the torture issue against Bush, but polls showed that it was not a winner. This is really quite sad, but I'm not sure that it is fair to blame Kerry for this. Seems like the American electorate is really to blame.

Posted by ikl | December 9, 2007 11:19 PM

1) Er.. a little context re Jane Harman. A major employer in her district, Boeing , has been working for the past 6 years on the next generation of NRO spy satellites (i.e, Future Imagery Architecture, FIA.)

2) According to a recent New York Times article, that project was cancelled circa Sept 2005 after Boeing had pissed away $4 BILLION and showed no sign of being able to deliver. Article also talks about how Harman tried to save the project for Boeing.
See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/washington/11satellite.html?_r=1&oref=slogin#

3) In 2002-2003, Jane Harman was the last person in the world to stand up to the White House over anything.

PS Sources for this story also blew some smoke up the NY Times' butt, but that's another story.
The Times is evidently still in the Judith Miller mode of reporting.

Posted by Don Williams | December 9, 2007 11:23 PM

Buzz works hard, but who can believe that kind of shit any more?

Granted that some Dems are totally owned by the defense establishment (Harman) and that many are small-time operators with no convictions who just work from donor to donor and election to election, the Democratic response to Bush has been so craven that I've been asking myself whether there isn't an additional kind of cowardice involved: fear of death. The horse head in the bed.

You don't have to wellstone a whole bunch of Senators for them to get the idea.

No, I'm not kidding. Yes, I understand that people think that's paranoid. But the jellified response of the Democrats to everything whatsoever, even since they gained majorities in both houses of Congress, is really baffling. And Kerry's lame, gutless, loser campaign needs explanation too.

Posted by John Emerson | December 10, 2007 12:56 PM

Rockefeller had serious concerns in 2003, but he expressed them solely in a hand-written letter the Cheney (of all people). Not to the public, not to the press, not to other Senators. He apparently completely accepted the total anullment of Congressional oversight, and seemed terribly afrad of something. The letter reads as though written from jail or from hiding. And after 2003, as far as know, Rockefeller remained completely cowed.

Handwritten letter

Transcription

Posted by John Emerson | December 10, 2007 1:36 PM

Re Jay Rockefeller's letter to Cheney "I am retaining a copy of this letter in a sealed envelope in the secure spaces of the Senate Intelligence Committee "
---------
1) Ha ha ha ha. I've been in Room 211 of the Hart Office Building -- it's just a bunch of office cubicles with a half-asleep guard at the front entrance.

Have you checked inside that envelop lately, Senator?
hee hee

Posted by Don Williams | December 10, 2007 3:18 PM

Kerry should have spoken out on it regardless of the poll. Maybe if he had done a little educating on the topic, after opening the can of worms and going there, then it wouldn't have been politically bad at all, and would have done a ton of good. And it would have forced McCain's hand early on, when McCain was campaigning for Bush. And Kerry wouldn't have looked like such a weak little candyass. But the problem is that he WAS a weak little candyass, so he couldn't have carried it off anyway. It should have been Dean.

Posted by Phoebe | December 10, 2007 11:56 PM