Transcript of Bob Graham discussing CIA briefings on MSNBC - 05/15/2009

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David Shuster: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the CIA misleads Congress all the time and has at least one big-name Democrat backing her up, Former Senator Bob Graham who chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee following the 9/11 attacks and he joins us live this morning. Senator Graham, House Speaker Pelosi said specifically when she was briefed in September 2002, she was told that waterboarding specifically was not being used. What were you told during that same time period, September 2002?

Graham: David, when I was briefed which was about three weeks after the Speaker, the subject of waterboarding did not come up. Nor did the treatment of Abu Zubaydah or any other specific detainee.

Shuster: And the reason that's significant is because by the time of your briefing and the Speaker's briefing, we now knew Zubaydah had been waterboarded some 83 times. So again, was there a requirement, was it incumbent upon the CIA, to tell you as the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee or Ranking Member, was there an obligation on them to tell you about it if it was going on?

Graham: Yes, they're obligated to tell the full Intelligence Committee, not just the leadership. This was the same time within the same week, in fact, that the CIA was submitting its National Intelligence Estimate on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq which proves so erroneous that we went to war, have had thousands of persons killed and injured as a result of misinformation.

Shuster: So what were they telling you that fall in 2002 about what they were and were not doing with terror suspects that were in US custody?

Graham: Nothing very remarkable. They were discussing the fact that they had detainees and that they were interrogating detainees. But nothing such as that they were using these extreme torture techniques that would have made it a surprising briefing.

Shuster: Now, there are some who suggest that by either providing false information to Speaker Pelosi or actually withholding information from her, withholding information from you, that those CIA briefers broke the law. What's your view on that?

Graham: That's for some legal authority to decide. I can only state what I experienced.

Shuster: What do you make of this whole sort of kerfuffle, and that's probably not the right word for it, between the Speaker and yourself and the CIA? What's going on? Do you think the CIA was simply trying to, I don't know, push things sort of under the rug or maybe that they were post dating or taking the documents and writing things in after the fact that hadn't actually happened in these briefings? What do you make of all of this?

Graham: David, I think fundamentally, what's happening is there's an attempt underway to try to shift it, the discussion away from what's really important, and that is did the United States use torture, was that within the law, who authorized it, and what were the consequences of that -- those are the important issues. Whether the Speaker or anybody else knew about it is, frankly, sort of off on the edges.

Shuster: Now, a lot of people who are not familiar with you Senator Graham, might say 'how could Bob Graham know what was going on, what was said to him, nearly seven years ago, September 27th, 2002?' Explain the sort of notebooks that you keep and why they convinced you that in fact, the CIA had not told you certain information at that crucial briefing?

Graham: Well, the notebooks played another role in this. The CIA when I asked them, what were the dates these briefings took place, gave me four dates. And I went back to my spiral notebooks and a daily schedule that I keep and found, and the CIA concurred, that in three of those four dates, there was no briefing held. That raises some questions about the bookkeeping of the CIA. Under the rules of clandestine information, I was prohibited from keeping notes of what was actually said during that briefing other than a brief summation that it had to do with the interrogation of detainees.

Shuster: And finally, Senator Graham, do you believe there should be an investigation, either a special council or truth commission to find out exactly what was going on at the CIA at the time?

Graham: Yes, and more broadly than just what was going on at the CIA -- who was directing the CIA. The CIA is not a rogue organization. It responds to directions from higher authorities -- who were those authorities? What was the basis of their action and what was their motivation? Yes, I think there should be like the 9/11 commission a high level totally impartial group of Americans who will have the respect of the American people, review all those questions.

Shuster: Former Florida Senator Bob Graham. And Senator, thanks for joining us this morning.

Graham: Thank you, David.

Powell Aide Says Torture Helped Build Iraq War Case

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Matt Smith
May 15, 2009 - CNN

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Finding a "smoking gun" linking Iraq and al Qaeda became the main purpose of the abusive interrogation program the Bush administration authorized in 2002, a former State Department official told CNN on Thursday.

Vice President Dick Cheney speaks during a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad March 17, 2008. (REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz) The allegation was included in an online broadside aimed at former Vice President Dick Cheney by Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. In it, Wilkerson wrote that the interrogation program began in April and May of 2002, and then-Vice President Cheney's office kept close tabs on the questioning.

"Its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at preempting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al Qaeda," Wilkerson wrote in The Washington Note, an online political journal.

Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel, said his accusation is based on information from current and former officials. He said he has been "relentlessly digging" since 2004, when Powell asked him to look into the scandal surrounding the treatment of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

"I couldn't walk into a courtroom and prove this to anybody, but I'm pretty sure it's fairly accurate," he told CNN.

Most of Wilkerson's online essay criticizes Cheney's recent defense of the "alternative" interrogation techniques the Bush administration authorized for use against suspected terrorists. Cheney has argued the interrogation program was legal and effective in preventing further attacks on Americans.

Critics say the tactics amounted to the illegal torture of prisoners in U.S. custody and have called for investigations of those who authorized them.

Representatives of the former vice president declined comment on Wilkerson's allegations. But Wilkerson told CNN that by early 2002, U.S. officials had decided that "we had al Qaeda pretty much on the run."

"The priority had turned to other purposes, and one of those purposes was to find substantial contacts between al Qaeda and Baghdad," he said.

The argument that Iraq could have provided weapons of mass destruction to terrorists such as al Qaeda was a key element of the Bush administration's case for the March 2003 invasion. But after the invasion, Iraq was found to have dismantled its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, and the independent commission that investigated the 2001 attacks found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between the two entities.

Wilkerson wrote that in one case, the CIA told Cheney's office that a prisoner under its interrogation program was now "compliant," meaning agents recommended the use of "alternative" techniques should stop.

At that point, "The VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods," Wilkerson wrote.

"The detainee had not revealed any al Qaeda-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, 'revealed' such contacts."

Al-Libi's claim that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's government had trained al Qaeda operatives in producing chemical and biological weapons appeared in the October 2002 speech then-President Bush gave when pushing Congress to authorize military action against Iraq. It also was part of Powell's February 2003 presentation to the United Nations on the case for war, a speech Powell has called a "blot" on his record.

Al-Libi later recanted the claim, saying it was made under torture by Egyptian intelligence agents, a claim Egypt denies. He died last week in a Libyan prison, reportedly a suicide, Human Rights Watch reported.

Stacy Sullivan, a counterterrorism adviser for the U.S.-based group, called al-Libi's allegation "pivotal" to the Bush administration's case for war, as it connected Baghdad to the terrorist organization behind the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

And an Army psychiatrist assigned to support questioning of suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba told the service's inspector-general that interrogators there were trying to connect al Qaeda and Iraq.

"This is my opinion," Maj. Paul Burney told the inspector-general's office. "Even though they were giving information and some of it was useful, while we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between aI Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful in establishing a link between aI Qaeda and Iraq. The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish this link ... there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."

Burney's account was included in a Senate Armed Services Committee report released in April. Other interrogators reported pressure to produce intelligence "but did not recall pressure to identify links between Iraq and al Qaeda," the Senate report states.

Cheney criticized Powell during a television interview over the weekend, saying he no longer considers Powell a fellow Republican after his former colleague endorsed Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.

Wilkerson said he is not speaking for his former boss and does not know whether Powell shares his views.

Excuses You Might Believe In

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Democrats Are More Powerful Than Ever. How Will They Justify Doing Nothing?

Ted Rall
May 14, 2009 - YahooNews

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The defection of Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter and the imminent certification of Al Franken as the winner of Minnesota's election recount has handed Democrats what they always said they lacked in order to pass a progressive agenda: a filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate. Now they face the awful problem of coming up with new excuses for not doing anything.

How will Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other fake liberals weasel out of making good on their promises for real action on healthcare, the economy and the war? It won't be easy. They control both houses of Congress and the White House. Obama is about to fill a new vacancy on the Supreme Court. The Times of London writes that "Mr. Obama, by some assessments, has more political leverage than any president since Franklin Roosevelt in 1937"--at the peak of the New Deal, just before he overreached by trying to pack the Supreme Court.

The Republican Party, on the other hand, is suffering a crisis of faith--too much God-cheering and not enough adherence to core values like small government, fiscal conservatism, isolationism and protectionist trade policy. A mere 21 percent of Americans still call themselves Republicans, the lowest number since 1983. Similarly, reports the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, "just 21 percent say they're confident in the Republicans in Congress 'to make the right decisions for the country's future,' compared with 60 percent who express that confidence in Obama."

Democrats have never been as powerful. Republicans are weak. Obama won with a decisive, sweeping rejection of the Republican status quo. Harry and Louise, call your agents--socialized medicine is on the way! Not.

Be careful what you wish for--what you say you wish for, anyway. "The left is going to push Obama--now that he's got a veto-proof majority--to drive an agenda that a smart president would realize is a long-term political disaster," GOP pollster Rick Wilson tells ABC. "Long-term political disaster" is mainstream media code for "stuff that corporations hate."

Well, yes. What passes for the left in this country (center-right everywhere else, because they read) now has some not-unreasonable questions for Barack Obama. Such as:

Pretty please, can we now live in a country where people don't have to spend $800 a month to health insurance companies that deny their customers' claims?

Why are we still in Iraq?

How about some help for the victims of Katrina, many of whom never collected one red cent after losing everything?

Why are we paying billions to banks and still letting them gouge us with 25 interest credit card rates? Speaking of which:

How about doing something that might actually help people who live in the economy, rather than just capital markets?

These queries seem all the more relevant coming, as they do, from the liberal base of the Democratic party--the people who got Obama elected.

The trouble for our cute, charming prez is that he has no intention whatsoever of introducing a true national healthcare plan: one that covers everybody for free. He wants to expand the war in Afghanistan and drag out the one against Iraq. He will not punish Bush or his torturers, rescue homeowners in foreclosure, or nail scumbag banks to the wall. These changes would cost trillions of dollars to multinational insurance companies, defense contractors and other huge financial concerns who donate generously to candidates of both political parties and have a history of using their clout to manipulate elections in favor of their favorite candidates. A classic example is oil companies, who push down gas prices before elections in order to help Republicans.

The most that Democratic voters can expect from Democratic politicians is incremental, symbolic change that doesn't cost their corporate sponsors any serious coin. The New York Times marked Obama's 100th day in office with an editorial that approvingly encapsulated his accomplishments to date: "He is trying to rebuild this country's shattered reputation with his pledge to shut down the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, his offer to talk with Iran and Syria, and, yes, that handshake with Venezuela's blow-hard president, Hugo Chávez...The government is promoting women's reproductive rights. It is restoring regulations to keep water clean and food safe. The White House has promised to tackle immigration reform this year."

Trying. Promoting. Has promised.

Guantánamo isn't being closed; it's being moved. Gitmo's detainees will be transferred to a new harsher gulag under construction in Afghanistan. Thawed relations with Iran and Syria would create new business opportunities for big oil. Defending the right to an abortion is popular and doesn't cost Bank of America a dime. Immigration reform is code for legalizing illegal immigrants, not closing the border. Safety regulations reassure consumers and pump up the economy. Closing the border would raise wages. Corporations won't allow that.

Unfortunately for Obama's Democrats, small-bore initiatives only go so far, especially with the economy in meltdown. When people are desperate and angry they don't care as much about flag-burning or creationism or a handshake with Hugo Chávez. They want action--real action.

How will the Democrats avoid genuine change now that they enjoy the ability to enact it? Will they blame obstructionist Republicans? Will Democrats cross the aisle to vote with the Republicans? A new war, perhaps?

If nothing else, whatever dog-ate-my-homework excuse they come up with for sitting on their butts is bound to be amusing. If nothing else.

Senator Bob Graham: The CIA Made Up Two Briefing Sessions

HAKA note: Bob Graham was a notorious note taker and note keeper of 'everything and anything' that happened during his time while in public office. If he says they were not told I believe him.

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May 14, 2009 - emptywheel.firedoglake.com

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Bob Graham just appeared on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show. In addition to repeating earlier reports that he was never briefed on waterboarding, Graham revealed that the first time he asked the CIA when he was briefed on torture, it claimed it had briefed him on two dates when no briefing took place.

I didn't get Graham's exact quotes (and the quotes below are rough approximations), but when asked to respond to Philip Zelikow's assertion that members of Congress from both parties had been briefed on this program, Graham said that when he asked the CIA when he had been briefed on the program, the CIA gave him the dates of four briefings, two in April 2002 and two in September 2002, when they claimed they had briefed him about the program. But after Graham consulted his own records, he pointed out that on two of those dates, he had not attended any briefing. After Graham pointed this out to the CIA, they conceded their own dates were incorrect.

Graham then went on to repeat his claim that he had no recollection of being told about waterboarding Zubaydah or anything else about extreme interrogation.

In addition to repeating his earlier assertion that he would have remembered something that dramatic, Graham contextualized the briefing the CIA gave him--which occurred right in the middle of Graham's complaints about the inaccuracy of the Iraq NIE (the briefing on September 27, 2002 would have shown up just a few days after the British released a White Paper on September 24, 2002 that publicized for the first time the yellocake claim).

"Occurred in September 2002, right in the middle of the NIE on Iraq where I was at open war with the Administration where I was at war with the Administration on the inaccuracies of that NIE."

As Graham went on to point out, given the way the CIA was lying heavily to make the case for war against Iraq at the time, there's no reason they should be trusted to tell the truth about the briefings they gave.

"I'm a little surprised that Phil [Zelikow] would accept at face value on this subject when at the very same time they were telling us there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

Finally, Graham suggested that by briefing just two intell leaders at a time, it prevented those attending the briefings from comparing notes about what was heard; Graham has never even compared notes with Pelosi about what she got briefed three weeks earlier than Graham in September 2002.

"I was never in a briefing with House members. According to the CIA report, I was only at the September 27 meeting with one other senator, and surprisingly with two staff members, which would have been unusual."

The really damning thing, though, is the first point: CIA claimed Graham had been briefed on two days when no briefing occurred, which is not dissimilar from their claims that Jello Jay was briefed on February 4, 2003 when he didn't attend the briefing in question.

The CIA is just making shit up about these briefings, even to the point of claiming there were briefings when none occurred. Can we set aside, now, the notion that the CIA's own version of what it told Congress when has any credibility in the least?

More on this:

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/05/11/graham-corroborates-pelosi/