Silence is Golden
Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers were briefed on harsh interrogation techniques in 2002. It appears that she had no objections. I understand being quiet at the time you are shown something new. You are trying to process the information. But later, as you are sitting in your office and you are doing your research, a light bulb should have gone off. Something is wrong. Call some experts and pose hypothetical questions. Once you have done your homework, you must begin writing letters and asking for answers. It is unclear if any of the Democratic lawmakers who were present did this.
Why not?
Update: (From TP)
The Post reports the CIA gave about 30 private briefings between 2002-03 on its interrogation practices. Former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham (D-FL) said “he has no memory of ever being told about waterboarding or other harsh tactics.” In Feb. 03, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) filed “an official protest about the interrogation program.”
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From WaPo:
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. (more…)
