Posted on 05/15/2009 10:02:31 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Harman Letter to CIA Asked Policy, Not Legal Question on Interrogation Methods Rep. Jane Harman wrote about policy concerns, not legal concerns in the letter House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is citing to claim she let the top Intelligence Committee Democrat take the lead in addressing complaints to the CIA about "enhanced" interrogation techniques.
FOXNews.com
Friday, May 15, 2009
California Rep. Jane Harman wrote about policy concerns, not legal concerns, in the letter House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is citing in her claim that she let the top Intelligence Committee Democrat take the lead in addressing complaints to the CIA about "enhanced" interrogation techniques used on terror detainees.
In her Feb. 10, 2003, letter, Harman wrote to CIA General Counsel Scott Muller asking whether President Bush had authorized and approved the enhanced techniques, because of the impact such methods may have on policy.
"What was described raises profound policy questions and I am concerned about whether these have been as rigorously examined as the legal questions," Harman wrote, according to a redacted copy of the letter released on Jan. 3, 2008.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I wonder what the lying hag is going to come up with next.
Pelosi and Harman apparently hate each other. Harman (although a highly partisan Democrat)is a lot closer to center-left on foreign policy than the far left Pelosi. Things should get interesting.
In other words, Pelousy: "I'd like to know, by your own admission aforehand, that we may try your most senior White House officials for war crimes once we've got sufficient votes."
...nothing more, or rather, certainly nothing less!
HF
LOL...
Did piglosi actually think Harmon was going to lle for her?
She backstabbed the woman, strung her up and now she wants to use her for cover????
Fat chance.
http://www.nysun.com/national/blame-game-unfolds-in-house/67821/
Blame Game Unfolds In House
By ELI LAKE, Staff Reporter of the Sun | December 11, 2007
EXCERPT
Both lawmakers were briefed about the CIA’s practice of waterboarding, a technique deemed as torture by the American military and the Geneva Conventions, but only Mrs. Harman after her classified briefing sent a letter to the CIA regarding the practice, according to the Washington Post. Specifically, Mrs. Harman, who has asked the CIA to declassify the letter, says she wrote a warning against destroying videotapes.
On Monday, Mrs. Harman took to CNN to trumpet the letter she wrote in 2003. “As a rookie ranking member two weeks in, I was briefed on interrogation matters,” she said. “I was concerned enough about some of the things raised in the briefing that I wrote a highly classified letter, which I have asked be declassified, but it hasn’t been declassified. But Director Hayden basically raised the subject last week, so I can say that in my letter, I say that any planned effort to destroy videotapes would be ill-advised.”
On Sunday, Mrs. Pelosi issued a statement distinguishing between her briefings and those of Mrs. Harman, who she said “was briefed more extensively and advised the techniques had in fact been employed.” She also said she “concurred” with Mrs. Harman’s letter from 2003 that Mrs. Pelosi said protested the new interrogation practices.
Mrs. Harman yesterday met those careful words with an icy politeness. When asked on CNN whether Mrs. Pelosi “dropped the ball” when she was on the intelligence committee in 2002, Mrs. Harman said: “I don’t think so. And she’s speaking for herself. I wasn’t in the meeting she attended. But she says that she has complained about this.”
(snip)
A California Democratic strategist who knows both women yesterday said Mrs. Pelosi’s decision to deny Mrs. Harman the chairmanship of the intelligence committee was driven more by personality than politics. “Denying Jane Harman the chairmanship of that committee was a curious act, I am not sure it had as much to do with policy but personality,” Garry South said during a telephone interview.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0712/10/ltm.02.html
AMERICAN MORNING
Church Shooting in New Life Church; Al Gore Receiving A Nobel Peace Prize; CompUSA Shutting Down
Aired December 10, 2007 - 07:00 ET
EXCERPT
ROBERTS: Always good to see. Let me ask you about that meeting back in 2002, Porter Goss, who was then the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee told “The Washington Post” that lawmakers got a pretty clear understanding of waterboarding and he said, “the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement.” Is that correct? Was there encouragement?
HARMAN: I wasn’t there in 2002. I was a member of the intelligence committee but I became ranking member in early 2003. So I wasn’t there at that briefing. I was briefed on interrogation matters in my first month on the job, and the briefing I received raised concerns in my mind and so I wrote a letter at that time to the CIA general counsel, who briefed mean and I expressed some concerns about what I heard, including the fact that if there were videotapes, they should not be destroyed. The letter’s classified. I’ve ask that it be declassified, so I can’t say in specific terms what I wrote, but I did hear over the weekend from a staffer that she thinks there was a response, very unsatisfactory, to my letter and I’d be eager to see if the CIA recognized then that what I said was important. They obviously ignored it in 2005.
ROBERTS: And the “New York Times” in 2005 on June the 12th quotes you as saying “if you’re serious about trying to get information in advance of an attack it has to be made to work. I’m OK with it not being pretty.” Did waterboarding rise to the level of torture to you or was that in the realm of “not pretty”?
HARMAN: Well, this is a very complex subject and it was all classified. I agree with John McCain, that waterboarding is torture. I think if anyone has authenticity in congress, he does and that’s his view and I’m very pleased that congress is finally moving basically to ban it, and require that the army field manual, which applies only to military interrogations, applies to everything. We made a big mistake by letting the CIA have separate interrogations procedure.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0712/10/sitroom.01.html
THE SITUATION ROOM
CNN Poll: Huckabee Soars to Top; Huckabee on Gays & AIDS;
Aired December 10, 2007 - 16:00 ET
EXCERPT
BLITZER: One final question.
Nancy Pelosi, the new speaker of the House, she put out a statement yesterday in the aftermath of “”The Washington Post” story. When she was the ranking member in 2002, once these videotapes were actually made, that she was told about — apparently in these closed- door briefings about the waterboarding, the other harsh interrogation techniques. “The Washington Post” did a whole piece yesterday saying nobody really complained. Maybe one member complained.
Did she drop the ball, Nancy Pelosi, when she was a ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee?
HARMAN: I don’t think so. And she’s speaking for herself. I wasn’t in the meeting she attended. But she says that she has complained about this.
I want to make it very clear, I thought that the videotape — destroying videotapes was wrong, and I spoke out in 2003. I think that waterboarding constitutes torture. I buy John McCain’s view of that.
And I also think that the CIA should not have separate interrogation procedures. That’s why I voted against the Military Commissions Act two years ago which had a carve-out, let the CIA have a separate program. Congress should fix that and is about to fix that, I believe.
Fight back, Jane, fight back!! Rip that b**tch Pelousy to shreds!!
As you probably know, Harman comes from a New Deal Democrat lineage. Her father worked for FDR. Jane at one time would have been considered conservative by today’s RINO standards. As the dummies moved ever leftward, Jane adopted some of their positions as protective coloration... hasn’t done her much good.
so she did not object, only agreed to policy being questioned .. that lawyers had gone over policy.
Sweet.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
BTT.
Pelosi Accuses CIA Of Lying To Congress
letter gets mentioned....rather confused however.
House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Weekly Legislative Briefing (She was lied to LOL)
Well as many at this site and elsewhere have claimed for a long period of time she is a lying SOS. Only a really true idiot or totally brainwashed lib (hard to differentiate between), would still stick up for her. In their eyes, the later she probably is still adored. Those type of folks love those that lie and try to pull of dishonest acts.
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