Pelosi Leaves Unanswered Questions on Interrogation Briefings

May 13, 2009 5:24 PM

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: The intelligence briefings received by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2002 have developed into a recurring distraction for congressional Democrats. 

Instead of arguing over whether waterboarding and other techniques are legal, and whether they represent the right policies, Democrats are on the defensive as questions swirl over what one of the most prominent party leaders knew, and what she did about it.

Inconsistencies between the now-public account of the intelligence community and Pelosi’s description of what she knew have given Republicans an opening: They’re arguing that Democrats were complicit in allowing the very interrogation methods that President Obama now labels “torture.”

Pelosi told reporters today that she won’t answer questions on the matter until her weekly press conference tomorrow -- keeping the story alive for a full week after ABC News first reported on the intelligence report.

When she does explain herself further, at least three key questions remain:

1. When did she actually know waterboarding took place?

Pelosi has maintained that, in the only briefing she received on enhanced interrogation techniques, she was not told that waterboarding or any other of the enhanced methods had been used used, only that the Bush administration believed it had the legal authority to use them.

That account is contradicted by the report to Congress from the intelligence community last week. It described a Sept. 4, 2002 briefing where Pelosi, then-House intelligence Chairman Porter Goss, and two aides were told about “the particular EITs that had been employed” on terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah.

The detailed notes of the briefing -- which the report was based upon -- may clarify some of what Pelosi and Goss were told, if they’re declassified by the Obama administration. (The top Republican on the House intelligence committee, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., has reviewed those memos, and has asked for them to be released.)

Pelosi has not said publicly when she learned that waterboarding and other harsh techniques had taken place.

The intelligence report shows that a top Pelosi national-security aide, Michael Sheehy, participated in a February 2003 briefing where interrogation methods used on Abu Zubaydah -- which at that point included waterboarding -- were discussed. A Democratic aide says Pelosi was told by Sheehy about waterboarding then -- some six months after it was first used.

In addition, Pelosi’s choice to succeed her on the intelligence committee -- Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif. -- was in that second briefing, plus two others, in 2003 and 2004, where enhanced interrogation techniques were discussed.

In the second such meeting -- on July 15, 2004 -- the intelligence report describes “specific mention of waterboarding as one of the EITs.”

Said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, on Fox News Wednesday: "She was clearly briefed on these interrogation techniques, she raised apparently no objections during those briefings, and now she wants to have it both ways."

2. When she did find out, why didn’t she do more to stop it?

The speaker and her staff maintain that House Democrats did what little they could to register objections to the use of enhanced interrogation techniques -- but that the Bush administration wouldn’t or couldn’t be stopped.

They point to a letter Harman wrote objecting to the techniques in February 2003, after the first briefing she received from intelligence officials on the interrogation methods.

Harman wrote to the CIA at the time that the use of the techniques “raises profound policy questions and I am concerned about whether these have been as rigorously examined as the legal questions.” That letter appears to have been ignored by the Bush administration.

Pelosi said in December 2007 that she “concurred” with Harman’s protest. But if she concurred at the time, she didn’t put it in writing; she didn’t sign the letter along with Harman, or otherwise formally register an objection.

Pelosi may be right that nothing she said or did would have changed the practices, and the classified nature of the briefings surely limited her options. But it doesn’t appear that she went through any great efforts to make her views known, privately or publicly.

Under her leadership, Congress did vote in 2008 to extend the Army Field Manual’s prohibition on torture to the intelligence community -- a move that would have banned techniques such as waterboarding.

That bill was vetoed by President Bush, a point Pelosi aides make in arguing that Congress was powerless to stop the president.

“Failing to legally prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh torture techniques undermines our nation’s moral authority, puts American military and diplomatic personnel at-risk, and undermines the quality of intelligence,” Pelosi said after the veto.

Still, to some critics of waterboarding and other harsh tactics, the question of why Pelosi didn’t do more and sooner remains.

3. Does she think intelligence officials lied to her? And what will she do about it?

Almost lost in this discussion: If Pelosi was told in September 2002 that harsh techniques were not yet used, she was being badly misled.

According to the interrogation memos released last month by the Obama administration, Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002. Pelosi’s briefing occurred the following month.

A Pelosi spokesman, Brendan Daly, told ABC that the speaker is “is making no accusation against the CIA.”

But if she was so clearly lied to, why isn’t she demanding answers?

Perhaps more importantly moving forward, what does the speaker intend to do about this? She’s met with members of the intelligence committee to talk about ways to improve congressional oversight, but so far nothing firm is in place.

Will she hold the Obama administration to tougher standards, or press legislation -- with a presumably friendlier administration now in office -- to put in more congressional controls?

As we wait for answers, Pelosi has found relatively few allies among her fellow Democrats. Pressed by reporters yesterday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., allowed that “what was said and when it was said, who said it” should be part of a congressional inquiry -- though his aides later explained that he was not referring specifically to Pelosi.

Some Democrats may even be making things more difficult for the speaker. Senate Intelligence Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told AFP: “I don't want to make an apology for anybody, but in 2002, it wasn't 2006, 07, 08 or 09. It was right after 9/11, and there were in fact discussions about a second wave of attacks.”