Opinion
The truth about Nancy Pelosi's lie
Examiner Editorial
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May 11, 2009
Three things are now clear about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent comments about what she knew and when she knew it concerning the CIA’s use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs), including water-boarding:
First, it is no longer possible to doubt that Pelosi knew as of September 4, 2002 that the CIA included water-boarding among its tools for interrogating high-value terrorists like al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah. She knew this because, according to then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-FL, he and Pelosi received a detailed classified briefing from the agency. It is equally clear that, according to The Washington Post, her senior staff advisor on these issues knew about the use of water-boarding as a result of a briefing he received not long afterward, along with Rep. Jane Harman, D-CA, who succeeded Pelosi as ranking minority member on the intelligence panel in January 2003. Harman objected to the use of water-boarding as a result of that briefing and Pelosi seconded Harman’s objection. Further, in the months following the Sept. 4, 2002, meeting with Goss and Pelosi, the CIA conducted 39 more similar briefings of Senate and House members from both parties on the issue. In view of these facts, Pelosi’s April 23, 2009, claim that “we were not - I repeat - were not told that water-boarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used” was untrue and she knew it to be untrue.
Second, there are additional documents in CIA and congressional records that will remove any remaining doubt that Pelosi knew water-boarding and other EITs were being used and that further deadly terrorist attacks were thereby prevented from taking place in this country. A CIA spokesman confirmed to CNSnews.com, for example, the May 30, 2005, Justice Department memo describing how the “second wave” attack on Los Angeles was unraveled. Since President Barack Obama has already damaged national security by making public Justice Department legal memoranda to the CIA on water-boarding, no further damage will result from making public these additional documents concerning what Pelosi and other members of Congress were told and when. Such a release will end Pelosi’s nonsensical claim that she was told about the EITs but not their use.
Finally, the vast majority of Americans know the nation must first be preserved if the Constitution is to be protected. As Thomas Jefferson said, “to lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means." Do House Democrats wish to be represented by a Speaker who most certainly does not concur in this most basic truth, and who has lied to America about her conduct in office?
