Pelosi - TIES THE LIES - LINKS TORTURE PROGRAM TO WMD/SADDAM/IRAQ WAR

[kpete]

Is Pelosi Tying Torture Program To Push For Iraq War?
By Zachary Roth - May 14, 2009, 12:19PM

Here's a very interesting line from the statement Nancy Pelosi just gave:


*** We also now know that techniques, including waterboarding, had already been employed, and that those briefing me in September 2002 gave me inaccurate and incomplete information.

At the same time, the Bush Administration was misleading the American people about the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.


http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/05/pelosi_remarks_at_press_conference_about_briefing.php

But could it also be that Pelosi is trying to tie the push for evidence that Saddam had WMD with the CIA's torture program? That is, suggesting -- as several other people are beginning to do -- that the program was designed in part to dig up evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq.

We'll have more for you on that subject later today...
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/05/heres_a_very_interesting_line.php#more

UPDATE

But this is the Speaker of the House, second in line to the presidency, accusing the country's chief intelligence agency of lying to the country and to members of Congress. And the political pressure to get to the bottom of that -- whether they're lying, whether she's lying etc. -- will likely be irresistible.

Next you have a flurry of claims that a key motive behind the push to torture was to elicit 'confessions' about an alliance between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida, which was of course the key predicate for the invasion of Iraq. That again has to create much more pressure to clarify what happened. The basis of most of the anti-torture push has been the assumption that torture was used for the purpose of eliciting information about future terrorist attacks. Whether it was illegal, wrong-headed, misguided, immoral -- whatever -- most have been willing to at least give the benefit of the doubt that that was the goal. If the driving force was to gin up new bogus intel about the fabled Iraq-al Qaida link, politically it will put the whole story in a very different light. And rightly so.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/05/bigger_than_the_both_of_us_1.php

VIDEO:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BISLNUzO1BQ&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Femptywheel.firedoglake.com%2F&feature=player_embedded

[Old and In the Way]

1. Most likely. Remember what was happening in 2002? The IWR debate.

No doubts in my mind that the Bush administration was torturing to get confessions to link Iraq to Al Qaeda. The only real objective of Bush's GWOT was to provide justification to invade/occupy Iraq. Nancy's presser today has upped the ante to get a real investigation done on everything that went down from 2001 on.

[jsamuel]

2. she said an aide told her in February 2003, maybe a month before the invasion of Iraq

The Bush Admin was really doing a lot to get the people they were torturing to say there was a link between Iraq and the terrorists.

[livefreest]

3. oh boy! oh boy! oh boy!

the republicans might be sorry for attacking Pelosi:bounce: :kick:

[ColbertWatcher]

4. They keep thinking all women are the same as Sarah Palin. n/t

[livefreest]

10. well they got something else coming it seems

:toast:

[ControlledDemolition]

18. Sarah Palin, based on what she says and does, is a sorry excuse for a woman. n/t

[Enrique]

5. yeah, putting the Bush/Cheney lies back in the news

if the GOP insists we rehash that "old news" I guess we'll have to comply.

Aluminum tubes, yellow cake, Joe Wilson, Scooter Libby, Prague, all that good stuff. :-)

[ControlledDemolition]

19. Sarcasm alert.... Election stealing, swabbing your butt with the constition, is not good stuff? n/t

[Solly Mack]

6. K&R

[Beam Me Up]

7. Good for Nancy! Now maybe we can begin to ask a different question:

To what extent was "intelligence" derived from torture used to tie al Qaeda to the 9/11 attacks? The 9/11 Commission, shepherded by none other than "let me cover my ass on torture" Philip Zelikow, began with the assumption that the identity of the attackers and the role of al Qaeda in those attacks were known. To what extent was that "knowledge" based on "intelligence" derived under torture? Did the Bush cabal provide any more clear, irrefutable evidence to the American people and the world community that al Qaeda was responsible for all the events of 9/11 than they provided to show Iraq had WMD and was an immanent threat? Or has all this "evidence" been cloaked behind the shield of "national security"?

[emulatorloo]

8. Very interesting. It is hard for me to imagine Bush admin or their CIA pets giving an honest

breifing.

[LooseWilly]

9. I read those two statements slightly differently.

I read that second point: "At the same time, the Bush Administration was misleading the American people about the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." as being evidence in support of the proposition that Pelosi was lied to, or at least presented with misrepresented facts, in her briefing. Referencing the lies about WMDs as occurring "At the same time" essentially setting up that pattern of lying as a sort of MO for the Bush administration.

That said, I think trying to shine a light on what the Republicans would like to see as a tie between Pelosi and torture is a really bad strategy on their part. That sort of tie could easily mean political death for Pelosi in '10... so an attempt to hang that charge around her neck is going to lead to some serious push back... and the Speaker of the House definitely has some power to put into play on the subject. Turning the torture issue from a hot potato to political life and death for her... they'll just wind up forcing her to aggressively investigate in order to clear her own name... and if she's aggressively spearheading investigations, then her seat in '10 becomes a hell of a lot safer.

The potential tie between the torture and trying to provide links to Al Qaeda in order to justify invading Iraq... well that does provide a very handy target for Pelosi to work with if the pressure builds up enough for her to begin really prioritizing investigations...

[canetoad]

11. And to follow on from your train of thought....

This may be a very good reason not to release the new batch of torture photos YET.

As long as the GOP (Rove?) is trying to claim Pelosi has some sort of responsibility regarding the torture, release of the pictures will be inflammatory. Hell, you only have to look at the cries of 'Complicity' here on DU.

I strongly suspect that the strategy is to first clean up this mess about who knew what and when. Then when it can be proven that the torture is well and truly all the fault of Bushco, the way is clear to let the pictures out into the public domain.

[LooseWilly]

16. But more pics doesn't change the mess.

It just provides more incentive/excitement for the American public to actually look into, rather than forget about and move on from, the issue.
My argument is that pressing Pelosi works similarly... in that she will feel pressed to look into, rather than letting slide, torture issues... if she's being linked to them.

Though, if Pelosi is being pressed now, and is likely to move to press investigations, then I won't argue the point of the photos being released NOW... because I personally am mostly interested in having them released to wake the public up from their comfortable lethargy on the subject so that they'll be outraged enough to light a fire under someone's ass to do some investigating. If the Republicans are managing that same result by pressing Pelosi... I can wait until there's another lull in interest to have the pictures released. I suspect the ACLU would also be satisfied to have them released later, if there were some indication that the government was doing something about the underlying issues without the need to present them to force action.

I don't, personally, care about cleaning up the mess of who knew what and when... I say let the chips fall where they may. If some Democrats were complicit, let them be swept up in the investigations. I am of the opinion that Pelosi is not involved... but if she is... so be it.
"Nation of Laws" will never be more than just a handy PR phrase, in my opinion, until this is sorted... or rather, if & until this is sorted.

[Canuckistanian]

12. K&R

Say what you will about Pelosi's complicity, but it was a BAD move to blame HER for this mess.

She didn't get (and hold) that position by putting up with people who are trying to harm her reputation.

They picked the WRONG person.

[bobthedrummer]

13. self-deleted after venting

[Wednesdays]

14. K&R

:kick:

[BuyingThyme]

15. Yezzzzzzzzz.

[Hekate]

17. One of the things I have wanted forever is for Congressional Dems to realize and SAY

,,, that Bush-Cheney-Rummy-etc LIED TO THEM in those secret briefings.

And now, courtesy of Darth Cheney's delusion that declassifying memos and files will vindicate him, Dem leaders like Pelosi are saying what we know to be the truth after all. They were lied to.

Nancy Pelosi, Madame Speaker: You go, girl.

Hekate