Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Dems Aware Of Waterboarding In 2002,
Wondered If Technique Was Harsh Enough
This story is from the Washington Post - that would be not FOX News for you LiberNazis, and tells us that Democrats were aware of waterboarding back in 2002 and that some of them questioned if the so-called torture technique was harsh enough:
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.
"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.
[...]
With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).
[...]
"Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," said Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement."
[...]
GOP lawmakers and Bush administration officials have previously said members of Congress were well informed and were supportive of the CIA's use of harsh interrogation techniques. But the details of who in Congress knew what, and when, about waterboarding -- a form of simulated drowning that is the most extreme and widely condemned interrogation technique -- have not previously been disclosed.
[...]
Waterboarding as an interrogation technique has its roots in some of history's worst totalitarian nations, from Nazi Germany and the Spanish Inquisition to North Korea and Iraq. In the United States, the technique was first used five decades ago as a training tool to give U.S. troops a realistic sense of what they could expect if captured by the Soviet Union or the armies of Southeast Asia. The U.S. military has officially regarded the tactic as torture since the Spanish-American War.
In general, the technique involves strapping a prisoner to a board or other flat surface, and then raising his feet above the level of his head. A cloth is then placed over the subject's mouth and nose, and water is poured over his face to make the prisoner believe he is drowning.
[...]
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.
You Democrats and Liberals out there - you know who you are, you're Dem and Liberal politicians and their supporters - you're the ones who scream and yell and kick your feet, claiming to have such a higher degree of moral authority. That you're so righteous. You point fingers at others, feigning ignorance or lie that you haven't been briefed on an issue - in this case waterboarding - and finally, finally you're lies and BS hits the news circuit from the Washington Post, one of the most LIBERAL publications around.
Imagine Democrats asking, "gee, is waterboarding tough enough? Maybe we need more harsh methods of interrogations."
And then a few years later these same Dems condemn waterboarding because they think doing so will gain them political mileage.
Hypocrisy, thy name is, always has been and always will be - forever and ever - Democrat and Liberal.
©2007
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Labels: Corrupt Democrats, Dems Enable Terrorism
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