Congress Has Known About the Harsh Interrogation Procedures Used by the Bush Administration Since 2002

  Former CIA Director Porter Goss has come out against the administration for releasing the papers about the harsh interrogations used by the CIA under the Bush administration, claiming that the president has put partisan politics above national security.

  He is not the first to make that claim but he said something else that I found very interesting, especially in light of the fact that members of congress are calling for a truth commission to investigate the Bush administration.

he told a Washington Post reporter that members of Congress had been fully briefed on the CIA’s special interrogation program. “Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing,” Goss told the Post

  Congress was fully briefed on what techniques the CIA was using to interrogate prisoners. Congress KNEW what was going on all the time. Surely they must have opposed those techniques back then if they are so against them now right?

And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement

  Wrong! Congress encouraged the CIA, they approved of the methods being used that they now claim to be indignant about. But it doesn’t end there as the CIA repeatedly reported their activities to congress to make sure that they still had approval to use the interrogation procedures.

From 2002 through 2006 when the use of these techniques ended, the leadership of the CIA repeatedly reported their activities both to Executive Branch policymakers and to members of Congress, and received permission to continue to use the techniques

  Nancy Pelosi is now denying these claims and says that while she was briefed by the CIA on water-boarding she didn’t realize the procedure was actually being used. Yeah right!

  Some of those who were briefed on the procedures that the CIA were using asked if the procedures went far enough.

The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough

  So now that it is to a political advantage there is talk by Democrats of a truth commission to investigate the Bush administration and the procedures used to protect Americans. I have decided that I am for this idea, let us get all of the dirty laundry out in the open. I want to get to the bottom of this.

  I want to know how many and for how long these Democrats in congress knew about the harsh interrogations and why they did not have a problem with them until now. This is a can of worms that I really don’t think the Democrats want to open up. They were willing accomplices to the Bush administration’s interrogation procedures and it wasn’t until the winds of changed blew across the nation that they had a problem with the procedures.

  I say put them all on trial and let us once and for all see who had the nation’s best interests at heart.