Rep. Pete Hoekstra Says Congress Knew About the Interrogations

Rep. Pete Hoekstra told Sean Hannity last night
The Washington Journal
Peter Hoekstra ( Mr. Hoekstra, a congressman from Michigan, is ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence)
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair got it right last week when he noted how easy it is to condemn the enhanced interrogation program “on a bright sunny day in April 2009.” Reactions to this former CIA program, which was used against senior al Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003, are demonstrating how little President Barack Obama and some Democratic members of Congress understand the dire threats to our nation.
George Tenet, who served as CIA director under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, believes the enhanced interrogations program saved lives. He told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in April 2007: “I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”

Last week, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair, made a similar statement in an internal memo to his staff when he wrote that “[h]igh value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country.”

Yet last week Mr. Obama overruled the advice of his CIA director, Leon Panetta, and four prior CIA directors by releasing the details of the enhanced interrogation program. Former CIA director Michael Hayden has stated clearly that declassifying the memos will make it more difficult for the CIA to defend the nation.
It was not necessary to release details of the enhanced interrogation techniques, because members of Congress from both parties have been fully aware of them since the program began in 2002.
We believed it was something that had to be done in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to keep our nation safe. After many long and contentious debates, Congress repeatedly approved and funded this program on a bipartisan basis in both Republican and Democratic Congresses.
Perhaps we need an investigation not of the enhanced interrogation program, but of what the Obama administration may be doing to endanger the security our nation has enjoyed because of interrogations and other antiterrorism measures implemented since Sept. 12, 2001.

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Nancy Pelosi: CIA Briefing- I did not know they would use waterboarding
Both parties supported US interrogation program
More revelations concerning CIA destruction of torture tapes
by Joe Kay

According to a Washington Post article on Sunday, in 2002 four leading congressmen, including the current speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, Democrat from California, were “given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make the prisoners talk.”

The Post reports: “Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was water-boarding, 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 US officials said.”

Sunday’s article in the Post notes that beginning in 2002, the CIA gave top officials in Congress at least 30 private briefings, “some of which included descriptions of [water-boarding] and other harsh interrogations methods.”

The meetings included the leaders from both parties of the Senate and House intelligence committees. To date, press reports have revealed the names of six legislators who were briefed on the CIA torture program in 2002-2003: Democratic representatives Jane Harman (California) and Pelosi, Democratic senators Bob Graham (Florida) and John D. (Jay) Rockefeller (West Virginia), Republican Representative Porter Goss (Florida) and Republican Senator Pat Roberts (Kansas). Goss was subsequently made head of the CIA and was serving in that post when the tapes were destroyed in 2005.
Pelosi declined to respond in the Post article, but a “congressional source familiar with Pelosi’s position” told the newspaper that Pelosi recalled discussion of the techniques, but said they were still in the planning stage at the time. The source “acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time.”
According to a December 8 article in the New York Times, congressional leaders were informed of the existence of the videotapes in February 2003, and were also informed of the intention of the CIA to destroy them. Harman is now claiming that she urged the CIA not to destroy the tapes, but there was no attempt to inform the American people.
These revelations show that the Democratic Party leadership knew of the CIA’s torture program and approved of it. Only when the CIA program was leaked in 2005 did Democrats feel obliged to posture as opponents of these practices.
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Wild Thing’s comment…….
I like what Hoekstra says, but I also don’t think they don’t understand, it’s that they just don’t give a flying fig. This should be obvious in the denials of culpability that followed the attacks on 9/11.
This is going to get ugly, quickly. If they attempt to prosecute one person who did thier best to keep us safe, there is going to be an enormous backlash.