What did Pelosi know, and how did the CIA tell her?
A short primer in the intelligence-briefing policies in Washington, by one who saw it from the inside
Sunday TV interview shows escalated the current debate in the capital about what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew, and when she knew it, about waterboarding and other prisoner-interrogation techniques post 9/11. Reading between the lines, it seems clear her staff had been briefed several years ago by the CIA; that her staff then briefed her; and that, afterward, she claimed variously she had not been briefed and/or that the CIA had lied to her about the matter.
CIA Director Leon Panetta, a former Clinton White House chief of staff, has defended his agency avidly and, in doing so, has challenged Pelosi's credibility. She is in a no-win box and would be best served to just plain stop talking about the matter until media and political pressure have subsided. In the end, she will be embarrassed but almost certainly not censured (as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has proposed).
Several things should be said about the agencies and institutions involved. Pardon first-person references, as they are the easiest way to tell the story.
First, the intelligence agencies. I served for a time as an Army intelligence-analyst at the Pentagon in the Kennedy administration and, then, was a consumer of intelligence in my jobs in the Johnson and Carter administrations. The CIA traditionally has had the best and most reliable analysis in the U.S. government. That analysis, over the years, has sometimes been at odds with conventional policy wisdom in the Executive and legislative branches. This certainly was so during the Vietnam War era, when both in Washington, D.C. and Saigon analysts painted a picture of events far less rosy than that dispensed by the Defense Department and even the State Department.
Leading up to the Iraq intervention, CIA analysts also were far more skeptical than the intervention's principal sponsors, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. CIA Director George Tenet compromised the agency, however, by providing the famous "slam dunk" conclusion that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq — thus justifying the venture. Tenet's lapse should be seen as that of an ambitious bureaucrat cozying up to the White House. A mistake — and an exception.
The CIA, however, has been less than pure in its operational and counterintelligence functions. CIA executives traditionally have sloughed off its questionable activities with cowboys-will-be-cowboys justifications. Borderline activities, it is quickly explained, often are undertaken by "contract employees" rather than regular CIA staff officers.
For a time, during the Vietnam War period, the CIA also involved itself illegally in domestic activity. I had my own brushes with the agency as they attempted my surveillance in the 1970s, while I was active in the anti-war movement, and earlier in the LBJ years when I attempted to free the National Student Association from CIA control. I find the agency's denials of free-wheeling interrogation techniques and operations in third countries unconvincing, no matter what the supporting memos of the time might say. I suspect them to be paper trails purposely laid so as to provide "plausible deniability" if activities are later questioned. Do I have confidence that interrogation existed only within strict limits? Not at all.
Next, as to the Congress. The Congress is us, sometimes imperfectly representing the outlooks and wishes of the American people at any given time. Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence-agency officials tend to take a dismissive view of a majority of Senators and House members.
A handful of senior Intelligence, Defense, and Foreign Relations-related legislators are treated with deference and respect. But others, including at any given time, lower-ranking legislators as well as purely "political" leaders — Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid would fall, for instance, into this category — are often patronized or not trusted with the most sensitive information. Their obligatory briefings may or may not be as full as those provided to leaders of relevant Congressional committees. The briefings, however, be they full or limited, come from the analysis side of the intelligence agencies and are trustworthy.
Finally, concerning the President and the American people. The President and his principal foreign policy/national security advisers receive a daily briefing as the first order of business each morning. A written summary is distributed to a limited list, with backup information attached. Some Presidents, but not all, receive a personal briefing from the CIA director. Others depend on their national security advisers (in the Obama administration, General Jim Jones) to serve as middlemen. Either way, they get a fresh briefing each morning and updates during the day, if events dictate.
Is the information in the briefs trustworthy? Mainly, yes. As assistant to Vice President Humphrey during the Johnson administration, I read them daily and often followed up with questions to analysts who had prepared them. Even at the peak of controversy over Vietnam, I never had reason to believe that the briefs had been doctored to cater to Johnson's opinons or expectations. It was good, straight stuff and provided a solid information base to policymakers exposed to it.
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Comments:
Posted Mon, May 18, 10:53 a.m. inappropriate
There is, of course, another scenario, and that is that Pelosi, in her zeal to establish "truth commissions" got hoist by her own petard. Her pedantic style of addressing the press, coupled with her deer-in-the-headlights visage, do nothing to enhance her credibility. Richard Nixon famously said at the height of the Watergate scandal "Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.” I don't know if Bush hated or hates Pelosi, but her hatred of Bush has been worn on her sleeve, and she seems to be pushing her hatred it to the verge of self-destruction.
Posted Mon, May 18, 5:42 p.m. inappropriate
Pelosi is poison, both for her party and this country.
she has been told so many things by so many people, that, combined with her limited abilities, has her at the point she probably can't remember anything, anyway !
Posted Mon, May 18, 6:05 p.m. inappropriate
Sometimes you wonder how these things get started. This big flap regarding what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was told during a closed meeting about prisoners being tortured by American officials is just one example. Currently, in the print media and on what is supposed to pass for responsible news programming in America, we the public are being serenaded by a growing chorus of Republicans who are saying she concurred with the practice because she didn't do some sort of angry podium dance on the House floor about it, and because she didn't rush to appear on talk shows to express her indignation. Just that little bit of information about what she may or may not have known has led to a target being painted on her back for all the crackpots to take a shot at her. The sniveling little cowards.
Now, remember: Nancy Pelosi didn't torture anyone. Nor did she ORDER torture to be committed. Nor did she WRITE a memo that authorized it. Nor did she make any CLAIMS that what was being done in America's name wasn't torture. IT WAS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WHICH DID THOSE THINGS. The blame rests solely upon those who wrote the memos, ordered the torture to commence, and who actually performed that torture. But you wouldn't know that if you listened to the news. Indeed, if you listen to all the mouthpieces spouting their opinion on this matter, you'd almost come away thinking that Pelosi was the Godfather of the whole stinking mess.
Focusing upon Pelosi is like blaming a bystander for witnessing a car wreck. However, that didn't stop Peter King, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee. He said that if Pelosi failed to object to the torture techniques at the time she was briefed, then -- now, pay close attention to this neat twist of logic -- she was “an ENABLER” and “an ACCOMPLICE.” Republicans say that any probe into torture should be BROADENED to include what Pelosi knew and how much influence she had in shaping the Bush administration’s controversial policies. Can you appreciate the chuztpah it takes to make such a statement? Can any Democrat fail to catch a whiff of blackmail in the air?
People who do bad things to other people, regardless of their motives, are rarely found to be fountains of honesty. And when they are asked to descend from their self-appointed high places in order to explain themselves, they not only tend to blame others for their actions but also rush to find accomplices where none exist.
What you're seeing is a public distraction, pure and simple, one which was purposely orchestrated by the brain trust of the Republican Party. They want to divert your attention away from what really happened and, instead, keep you busy pondering some other crappy little details that don't amount to a bead of sweat on a gnat's behind. It's another form of "bait 'n switch," except here the Republicans are successfully switching the public's attention away from some terribly rotten bait that came right out of their own bag several years ago, but which is now stinking up the ship of state. They keep pointing in other directions as the source of the smell. And the media, which should know better by now, is stupidly falling for the switch and is performing as their salesmen. In a word, it's shameful.
H. Lauther
Posted Tue, May 19, 1:24 a.m. inappropriate
She wants to punish the Republicans of that time for what they allowed, yet, after being briefed, she did not further object - so now she gets off scott free ?
H Lauther, you must be joking, right ?
Posted Tue, May 19, 9:33 a.m. inappropriate
hlauther writes: "Pelosi failed to object to the torture techniques at the time she was briefed, then -- now, pay close attention to this neat twist of logic -- she was “an ENABLER” and “an ACCOMPLICE.”
Sounds about right to me. Aren't those the kind of terms that pop-psychologists use to describe dysfunctional people and their "co-dependents"? "She was too stupid to object" isn't much of a defense. These things happen because government has too much power. The chief enablers of government power have historically been Democrats. The fact that Republicans took a swing at it at the start of the decade just shows how so much power can tempt even the self-styled proponents of smaller government. Pelosi was an accomplice of the worst sort - a hypocritical one.
Posted Tue, May 19, 3:13 p.m. inappropriate
"The chief enablers of government power have historically been Democrats"...
Actually I believe the chief enablers of government power is an apathetic/ignorant populace.
Posted Tue, May 19, 8:30 p.m. inappropriate
Woah! Root Cause Analysis.
Agreed.
Posted Wed, May 27, 8:06 p.m. inappropriate
Mr Van Dyk's whole story is based on 'reading between the lines', in which he concludes Pelosi's staff had been briefed several years ago by the CIA without her present.
This assumption seems utterly absurd. We're to believe that staff members were given highly, highly classified briefings by the CIA and the House member herself wasn't present? Hardly. It seems completely nonsensical to do that.
Van Dyk, like all of the corporate press, have fallen for the same bait. Namely, convering the he-said, she-said story instead of covering the story that members of the government were involved in torture, a war crime. THAT'S the real story here.