[There are back-up links for everything, as you'd expect from FAIR]
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/20-14
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Does the CIA Ever Lie? Parsing the Pelosi Torture Controversy
by Peter Hart
<snip>
While Pelosi's performance at her May 14 press conference has been
derided throughout the media, it is hard to see how Pelosi's story has
been, as Matthews put it, "so confusing, so ever-changing and so
convoluted." A compilation of Pelosi's statements put together by the
Washington Post (5/15/09 [2]) show her taking a straightforward and
consistent stance that she was only briefed once about interrogation
techniques and was told the U.S. was not using "waterboarding."
Of course, without having attended the briefings, there is no way to
judge who is telling the truth--the CIA or Nancy Pelosi. But the media
frenzy over the divergent stories seems to discount the idea that the
CIA would ever mislead lawmakers about its actions. This view is hard
to square with history; as Adam Serwer noted at the American Prospect's
blog Tapped (5/15/09 [3]), a recent book on the CIA by New York Times
reporter Tim Weiner recalled several examples, including former CIA
directer Richard Helms telling the Senate in 1973 that the CIA had no
involvement in that year's coup in Chile, a lie that led to Helms
pleading guilty to perjury in 1977. Weiner also described CIA director
William Casey's frequent dissembling in the Iran/Contra scandal.
In 2001, a plane carrying Baptist missionaries from Michigan was shot
down in Peru as part of a drug interdiction program run by the CIA and
Peruvian officials. The victims' cause was taken up by Republican
lawmakers, and an ensuing internal CIA investigation "concluded that
agency officials deliberately misled Congress, the White House and
federal prosecutors" about the incident (Washington Post, 11/21/08
[4]). "CIA officials in front of my committee may have allowed
incomplete or misleading statements to be made," Rep. Pete Hoekstra
told the Post (R-Mich.). Hoekstra's concerns are ironic considering, as
the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence committee, he has
emerged as one of Pelosi's chief antagonists, calling the speaker's
charges that she had been misled by the CIA "outrageous accusations"
(CNN American Morning, 5/18/09).
As Jason Leopold recalled (Truthout, 5/15/09 [5]), the Washington Post
reported in 2006 that Mary McCarthy, the CIA's former deputy inspector
general, believed the CIA was lying about its interrogation practices
when it briefed lawmakers. As the Post reported (5/14/06), McCarthy
"became convinced that on multiple occasions the agency had not given
accurate or complete information to its congressional overseers."
The evidence against Pelosi, meanwhile, is often wildly overestimated.
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote dismissively (5/17/09
[6]) of Pelosi's "campaign for self-vindication," since to him the
evidence is clear: "If you read the CIA's careful 10-page summary of
the 40 briefings it has given to Congress since 2002 on 'enhanced
interrogation techniques,' it's pretty hard not to conclude that Pelosi
is shading the truth to retrospectively cover her backside." Not
really; the summaries are short descriptions of the subjects that were
covered in the briefings. Pelosi was briefed on one occasion (9/4/02),
according to the CIA's summary, which does not mention the term
"waterboarding" being used, though it is specifically mentioned in the
summaries of 12 other briefings. Ignatius went on to recall an instance
during Iran/Contra where the CIA was apparently more honest than its
critics in Congress--a rather narrow view of that scandal.
In addition, another Democratic lawmaker--former Sen. Bob Graham--was
listed as having been briefed four times. When Graham--a famously
meticulous diarist--told the CIA that he was actually only briefed
once, they agreed and corrected their records (NPR, 5/15/09). Why such
records are treated as if they are beyond question is puzzling. Rep.
David Obey (D.-Wisc.) complained that the summaries listed a staffer as
having been briefed on interrogation techniques who, according to Obey,
had actually been specifically excluded from the meeting (Associated
Press, 5/19/09).
In short, an agency has been accused of breaking the law and has
admitted to destroying key evidence (videotapes of some interrogation
sessions) that could implicate its personnel in that lawbreaking
(Washington Post, 12/7/07 [7]). The same agency has a record of
misleading members of Congress (among others) about its activities. And
somehow the point of the current media scandal is whether or not Nancy
Pelosi is telling the truth?
Peter Hart is the activism director at FAIR [8]. He writes for FAIR's
magazine Extra [9], and is also a co-host and producer of FAIR's
syndicated radio show CounterSpin [10]. He is the author of The Oh
Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly" [11]
(Seven Stories Press, 2003).