When The Stories Just Don’t Agree

On April 30th, Marc Thiessen posted an article in the Washington Post about some statements in former CIA counterterrorism chief Jose Rodriguez’s new book. Mr. Rodriguez is doing the talk show circuit to publicize his book about his days at the CIA. In the book Mr. Rodriguez recounts events showing that then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi lied when she stated that she was not aware that waterboarding was used on captured terrorists.

The artice states:

In his new book, “Hard Measures,” Rodriguez reveals that he led a CIA briefing of Pelosi, where the techniques being used in the interrogation of senior al-Qaeda facilitator Abu Zubaida were described in detail. Her claim that she was not told about waterboarding at that briefing, he writes, “is untrue.”

“We explained that as a result of the techniques, Abu Zubaydah was compliant and providing good intelligence. We made crystal clear that authorized techniques, including waterboarding, had by then been used on Zubaydah.” Rodriguez writes that he told Pelosi everything, adding, “We held back nothing.”

Why is this important? A few years ago David Limbaugh wrote a book called, BANKRUPT, The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today’s Democratic Party. The book details the recent history of the Democrat Party playing politics with important matters of national security. I strongly recommend it, although it did make me very angry.

Because the reports of the briefing of Speaker Pelosi including the information in question remain classified, there is no way of confirming either Ms. Pelosi’s or Mr. Rodriguez’s story. It would help all Americans if those documents were de-classified.