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Pelosi under fire over 'torture' briefings
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-14 07:41
 WASHINGTON: US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a key ally of President Barack Obama, has come under fire over whether she has long known about harsh interrogation tactics used in George W. Bush's "war on terror." "She was briefed on it and if she felt it was wrong she should have acted," Senator John McCain, the losing 2008 Republican presidential nominee, told reporters on Tuesday. Most of the criticism has focused on why, if briefed, Pelosi did not do more to stop the use of waterboarding, or simulated drowning, a technique many say amounts to torture. "I was briefed on it, and I vehemently objected to it. We did the Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibited cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. So we felt, I certainly felt, I could act on it," said McCain, a Vietnam War veteran with a long track record opposing torture. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recalled that in the early stages of the "war on terror" launched in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks, "everybody participated and significant people who count were briefed." If an inquiry takes place, he added, "everybody who was involved in it, both on the administration side and the congressional side, will certainly be subject to inquiry." The comments by the senior Republicans came after the Politico news website cited a source close to Pelosi as saying that the speaker had learned in early 2003 that the Bush administration was waterboarding terror detainees. According to the source, she did not protest to the CIA out of respect for "appropriate" legislative channels. Last week, reports emerged that CIA officials had briefed Pelosi aide Michael Sheehy and Democratic Representative Jane Harman in February 2003 about interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, used on suspected top Al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah. AFP (China Daily 05/14/2009 page12) |
