Nancy Pelosi and waterboarding
Rivals say the Democratic House speaker, who wants a torture 'truth commission,' knew about waterboarding for years.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ratcheting up Democratic pressure for a torture "truth commission," said Michael McAuliff and James Gordon Meek in the New York Daily News. Pelosi set the stage for a showdown in Congress by saying that President Obama, who has ruled out prosecuting CIA interrogators, should leave the door open to filing charges against top Bush administration lawyers "who formulated policies to strip, slap, shove, and waterboard" al Qaida detainees.
If Pelosi's so interested in the truth, said Allahpundit in Hot Air, she should start by being clear about her own involvement. Pelosi admits she was told, in 2002, "that waterboarding could be used but insists she was never told it would be used." That jibes with a 2007 Washington Post story saying Pelosi received a "virtual tour" of secret CIA interrogation centers—so clearly she was "sufficiently comfortable" with waterboarding to look the other way.
There are bound to be records and witnesses, said Jennifer Rubin in Commentary, so it won't be hard to get to the bottom of this. Even Republicans should support "a hearing on this topic: What did Congress know and when did it know it? First witness: Nancy Pelosi."
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