Bob Graham: I Wasn’t Told About Waterboarding Or EITs In My Briefing

[kpete]

Source: The Plum Line

The Plum LineGreg Sargent's blog
Bob Graham: I Wasn’t Told About Waterboarding Or EITs In My Briefing

Former Senator Bob Graham, who received a classified briefing on terror detainees during the same month in the fall of 2002 as Nancy Pelosi, was not briefed about the use of either waterboarding or enhanced interrogation techniques during the meeting, he claimed in an interview with me.

Graham’s assertion — his first public comments since the release of the intelligence document detailing torture briefings given to members of Congress — directly contradicts the document’s claim that he had been briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques, or EITs. Graham is now the second Dem official to deny on the record the document’s contents and raises questions about its claim that Pelosi had been told, which she has denied.

“I do not have any recollection of being briefed on waterboarding or other forms of extraordinary interrogation techniques, or Abu Zubaydah being subjected to them,” Graham told me by phone moments ago, in a reference to the terror suspect who had been repeatedly waterboarded the month before.

Graham is the only other Dem aside from Pelosi to get briefed in 2002, so they are both in effect asserting that no Dem was briefed on EITs that year. The date of the next briefing was in February 2003.

Read more: http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/torture/bob-graham-i-wasnt-told-about-waterboarding-or-eits-in-my-briefing/

[DerekJ]

1. "I do not have any recollection" ..hmmm, when, and where did I hear that phrase repeated so much?!

I wonder!

[Inuca]

2. Do you have any reason to doubt Graham's words?

Except the sweet pleasure of snark, that is.

[DerekJ]

4. No, not really. Just a snark mostly. However though, you have to admit that the

word recollection open the door to doubt. And this is the kind of stuff you do not forget so quickly.

Cheers,

[Inuca]

5. Graham was the one

that implored the other senators to go and read the classified report before they decided on the Iraq vote. That does not make him a saint, but I think that at the very least it allows him a hefty dose of benefit of the doubt.

[elleng]

7. He's as close to 'saintly' as they get, imo.

damn straight.

[SlingBlade]

3. When Politicians use terms such as ....

"I do not have any recollection"

My Bullshit Detector starts blinking and beeping

[w4rma]

6. Senator Bob Graham ran in the 2004 presidential primary on this issue.

He definitely has credibility.

[elleng]

8. Yes, much more than most, imo.

.

[Blue Meany]

10. I understand, but I also use the phrase because, as I get older,

I don't have as much confidence in my memory, and I want to be accurate in what I say. On the other hand, when you have someone like Gonzales who doesn't recall much of anything, it's pretty clear that this is bullshit. It's the repetition of this phrase over and over and consistently on key questions about wrongdoing that raises suspicions for me.

[rucognizant]

13. I'm 70.................

And my memory is pretty top-notch. ( as was my Father's to the day he died.)
I don't believe the use of the word recollect, implicates Graham here. "I recollect; don't recollect." is a frequently used Southern phrase,especially in older people; he's in FLa.
I recollect, when he was campaigning for President in 2004, he hinted at knowledge of to classified info that he had gained while on the Intelligence committee........of course he couldn't tell it as the bushies were firmly in charge of classifying EVERYTHING. But it was more toward the foney WMD's & Plame than torture.
I also recollect Dick Gerbhart's stepping down speech when he withdrew from the race, he made reference to watching what you say as there were more eyes on us then we realized.................. SO HE knew about the spying on Americans back then.
I really wanted Bob Graham to be elected. Wouldn't it have been great to have had a President who made notes in his pocket notebook, during KAtrina for instance? He wouldn't have left those trucks full of ice parked in MAine for months! BUT the MEDIA made fun of the fuddie duddiness of actually "making notes to organize ones self!
Change needs to begin with an educational over haul!

[Tempest]

12. What Graham is saying...

Is that he doesn't remember being briefed, but will correct himself if concrete evidence is given that he did.

And so far we have competing memos from the CIA on whether he or Pelosi was briefed.

[AlbertCat]

14. My Bullshit Detector starts blinking and beeping

Are you keeping track of the false positives?

[stlsaxman]

15. Senator Bob Graham PERSONIFIES credibility. The epitome of character.

Check your facts then throw out your broken Bullshit Detector.

[aquart]

16. And if he can't remember being told because it never happened

Do you think we should waterboard him till he talks, or simply disbelieve him?

[JI7]

17. then you don't know anything about Bob Graham and his opposition to the war

[Hubert Flottz]

9. I trust Bob Graham a hell of a lot more than Dick Cheney

Cheney lied us into Iraq in the first place!

[liberalmuse]

11. I wouldn't be surprised. Cheney had the yellow cake docs altered/forged.

Why wouldn't he have the briefing report 'enhanced' as well. I look at it as who has more credibility, our Dems, or the Bush/Cheney cabal. I know who I'm going with, hands down.

[No Elephants]

19. Both can be unreliable.

[No Elephants]

18. "We are using only the interrogation techniques that lawyers have looked at very

closely and determined NOT to be torture."

There. You've been briefed.



FWIW, if anything, Graham's wife is an Arab American. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adele_Khoury_Graham She is, however, probably not Muslim or of Muslim descent. (For those who do not know, Arab Christians are an extremely small minority, except in Lebanon, although their numbers are decreasing there.)



Who has more motive?



1/ If Democrats were briefed about torture in a more specific way, they had a lot incentive to keep mum about it in 2002 and they have a lot of incentive to deny it now.

2/ Bushco had a lot of incentive to try to endgame Democrats in 2002 by including them in some "guilty" secrets. Whether Bushco actually did that or not, in 2009. as the Republican Party worries about becoming a regional Party, Bushco has enormous incentive to claim that it did brief Democrats in 2002, whether or no that is true.

3/ Since Pelosi had already said she was not briefed, Graham has a bit of extra incentive to say he was not briefed in 2002.

4/ If it was a true briefing, and not something like I suggested at the beginning of this post, I'd sure recall whether I'd been briefed on torture or not. Therefore, I find it unsettling to what I'd LIKE to believe that Graham claims to be unable to remember, one way or the other.