A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

I happen to think that waterboarding should not be used as an interrogation device for many of the reasons listed here. Even if we put aside any and all moral objections to the practice, when you have an interrogation technique that induces "hysterics on the board," you have an unreliable interrogation technique. After all, how much would you trust information from someone who has gone into hysterics--especially with the national security of the United States on the line?

So I can certainly understand why the issue of waterboarding causes people to be passionate in their arguments and advocacy. What I cannot understand, however, is how the same people who denounce waterboarding, once were utterly and completely silent about the moral qualms that they may have had--and indeed, showed few moral qualms--when they were briefed on the issue:

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.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

Congressional leaders from both parties would later seize on waterboarding as a symbol of the worst excesses of the Bush administration's counterterrorism effort. The CIA last week admitted that videotape of an interrogation of one of the waterboarded detainees was destroyed in 2005 against the advice of Justice Department and White House officials, provoking allegations that its actions were illegal and the destruction was a coverup.

Yet long before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

Individual lawmakers' recollections of the early briefings varied dramatically, but officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support. "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," said Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement."

So this is all very interesting indeed. And it now begs the question: Who amongst those now denouncing the Administration for allegedly using waterboarding as an interrogation technique was demonstrating "outright support" for the technique back when they were first briefed about the issue? Oh, the story says that at the time of the briefing, there was deep concern about another imminent terrorist attack, but the Bush Administration was at least equally concerned and no one has given them a free pass on the issue of torture despite the existence of that concern. And while notes may not have been taken, the briefings were described as "detailed and graphic," so one pretty much had to be a vegetable not to understand what was going on. Even if the briefings were vague on the specifics of waterboarding, all of the reporting on the issue after the fact should have prompted at least a few of these latter-day critics of the practice to come out, admit that they were briefed on the issue back in 2002 and say something along the lines of "at the time, I didn't have a full awareness of what waterboarding was, now I do, I'm appalled, blah blah blah." Thus far, we haven't even gotten that and if we do, it will only be because this story has now come out.

And of course, many of the Democrats who had been briefed on the issue of waterboarding--and who showed "outright support" for the practice--were the same ones who not only castigated the Administration for its alleged use of the practice and who demanded that Michael Mukasey render a quasi-legal decision during his confirmation hearings on the acceptability of waterboarding. The mind reels. We have the following weak tea from the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

Pelosi declined to comment directly on her reaction to the classified briefings. But a congressional source familiar with Pelosi's position on the matter said the California lawmaker did recall discussions about enhanced interrogation. The source said Pelosi recalls that techniques described by the CIA were still in the planning stage -- they had been designed and cleared with agency lawyers but not yet put in practice -- and acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time.

Where there's smoke, there's fire. This is one of the lamest attempts to deny knowledge of any controversial policy I have come across in a long time. Just what was Pelosi thinking? Did she believe that it was okay to remain silent simply because waterboarding allegedly had not been practiced at the time? And again, now that waterboarding has allegedly been practiced, why hasn't Pelosi come out with an admission that she was briefed on the issue and a mea culpa stating that she should have objected to the practice at the time? Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, to be sure, but that doesn't mean that consistency is never a virtue.

And then we have this, from the former ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jane Harman:

Harman, who replaced Pelosi as the committee's top Democrat in January 2003, disclosed Friday that she filed a classified letter to the CIA in February of that year as an official protest about the interrogation program. Harman said she had been prevented from publicly discussing the letter or the CIA's program because of strict rules of secrecy.

"When you serve on intelligence committee you sign a second oath -- one of secrecy," she said. "I was briefed, but the information was closely held to just the Gang of Four. I was not free to disclose anything."

You know something? I am somewhat sympathetic to this. But the oath of secrecy does not entail an oath to not work against the implementation of a policy one finds offensive. Other than filing an official protest, what did Harman do to scuttle the practice of waterboarding behind the scenes? What did Pelosi do?

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Say this for John McCain. At least he understands when consistency might be a virtue:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former Vietnam War prisoner who is seeking the GOP presidential nomination, took an early interest in the program even though he was not a member of the intelligence committee, and spoke out against waterboarding in private conversations with White House officials in late 2005 before denouncing it publicly.

I have a lot of problems with McCain's policy platform on various issues, but when it comes to national security matters, he has been utterly principled and honorable. The passage above speaks very well of his sense of intellectual curiosity and his sense of virtue.

As for the rest of the people discussed in the story: Meh. The next time they say anything about the issue of waterboarding, this story should come up and they should be made to answer certain questions. They got some 'splainin' to do.