Senator Bob Graham: The CIA Made Up Two Briefing Sessions

[dbackjon]

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.

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/ ... -sessions/

[SeattleGriz]

I'll give this one a stab.

Graham said Saddam had WMD's. He is a fokking retard who couldn't even discern whether Iraq had WMD's or not. He is not a reliable source. Probably confusing briefings with putting on his underwear.

Was that good enough vitriol?

I tried my best.

[dbackjon]

Bob Graham: It Was OCA, with the Briefing, in the Hart Senate Building
By: emptywheel Monday May 18, 2009 7:12 am 3
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Bob Graham was just on CSPAN's Washington Journal. He raised two more potential problems with the CIA's account of its briefings on torture.

First, he said Stan Moskowitz, from the CIA's Office of Congressional Affairs, conducted the briefing. Yet the CIA says that people from the CounterTerrorism Center conducted the briefing. As I have suggested, that might mean that Jose Rodriguez, then head of CTC, conducted the briefing; Rodriguez is the guy who later ordered the destruction of the torture tapes. Or it might mean that Jonathan Fredman, the guy who once said "If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong," and then-Counsel for CTC, did the briefing. But Graham was absolutely unequivocal that-based on his famously anal notes, Moskowitz did the briefing.

Now, this may not be a real discrepancy. Maybe people from CTC attended the briefing and Moskowitz led it. I'll try to get some clarification on this question. One place we can't get clarification on the briefing, though, is from Moskowitz himself; he passed away in 2006.

But Graham's other point was clearly damning. He said the briefing occurred in the Hart Senate Office Building and not--as happened with highly classified briefings--at the White House. That detail, plus Graham's earlier observation that staffers attended the briefing, suggest the briefing was not treated as typical "Gang of Four" or "Gang of Eight" briefings were generally treated.

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/ ... -building/

[houndawg]

Wow. What if Pelosi's version is right? That ain't gonna be pretty.