Former Intelligence Committee Chair on Torture Briefings: I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues

Former CIA Director Porter Goss should be investigated for his role in the torture scandal, but he still makes an important point about the role of some Democrats

By Jeremy Scahill

It has been known for years that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Jay Rockefeller and other leading Democrats were briefed on the US torture program in real time in 2002. This may be one reason why the Democrats seem to be leaning in the direction of closed door intelligence hearings instead of calling for an independent special prosecutor. While some Democrats have indicated they may hold public hearings, this is not the same as the criminal investigation that this war crimes scene necessitates. Unfortunately, the main figures calling out the Democrats on their complicity in the torture program are the biggest torture advocates—Republican politicians, who obviously have their own political agendas.

The latest Republican to detail the extent to which the Democrats were briefed on the torture program is Porter Goss, who was director of the CIA from September 2004 to May 2006 and was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 to 2004. In The Washington Post this weekend, Goss wrote:

Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as “waterboarding” were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:

— The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.

— We understood what the CIA was doing.

— We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.

— We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.

— On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.

I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed “memorandums for the record” suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately — to the committee chairs, the briefers, the House speaker or minority leader, the CIA director or the president’s national security adviser — and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted. And shifted they have.

Of course, Goss himself should be one of the figures looked at in the special prosecutor’s criminal investigation, particularly his leadership years at the CIA. While it is important to keep the focus on the top-down chain of command (starting at the top) in determining responsibility for these crimes, the actions (or lack thereof) of the Democrats who were briefed on this torture program should be made public to determine their responsibility as well.