Bob Graham: I Wasn’t Told About Waterboarding Or EITs In My Briefing
theplumline.whorunsgov.com
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 the use of EITs that year. The date of the next briefing was in February 2003.
Graham claimed he would have remembered if he’d been told about the use of torture. “Something as unexpected and dramatic as that would be the kind of thing that you would normally expect to recall even years later,” he said.
The documents released late last week state that Graham, then the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and ranking Republican Richard Shelby, were briefed on September 27, 2002 and given a “description of the particular EITs that had been employed” on Abu Zubaydah. The document says that Pelosi received a similar briefing earlier that month, though the letter accompanying the doc acknowledges that the CIA can’t vouch for its accuracy.
Graham denied being told about EITs, and argued that the presence of two staff members at the meeting (as indicated in the records) would have made it “highly unusual” for the briefers to divulge such sensitive info. “I don’t recall having had one of those kinds of briefings with staff present,” he said. “That would defeat the purpose of keeping a tight hold” on the info.
Graham, however, was circumspect on what was actually discussed, saying only that “the general topic had to do with detainee interrogations” but didn’t include any reference to EITs or waterboarding.
Graham’s claims come as evidence remains mixed about what Pelosi knew and when. Though she has denied being told that torture was being used, the CIA docs claim that a top Pelosi aide was told about it in the spring of 2003.
The CIA declined comment on Graham’s claim, but a U.S. official said: “CIA records indicate that several people, including former Senator Graham, were briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques.” |
