CIA's John Brennan Vows No More Waterboarding

WND -- John Brennan, CIA director, said in an interview with NBC News he would not allow waterboarding to go forth under his leadership ever again, even if the next president of the United States were to order him to do so.

“I will not agree to carry out some of these tactics and techniques I’ve heard bandied about because this institution needs to endure,” he said.

The viewpoint sets him at odds with a couple of the Republican candidates running for president. Sen. Ted Cruz has stated on previous occasions he’d consider returning to some of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” that were approved for use under former President George W. Bush’s tenure, but banned by President Obama.

Donald Trump, GOP front-runner, has spoken even more forcefully of the matter, saying he’d allow a return to “a hell of a lot worse” interrogation techniques than waterboarding.

Trump also said in previous remarks that the CIA under his leadership would not refuse to waterboard.

“They’re not going to refuse me,” he said during public remarks in March. “If I say do it, they’re going to do it.”

But Brennan said otherwise – that he would refuse to carry out an order he felt was akin to a war crime, NBC News reported.

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Blog Author's Comments -- John Brennan has no business being involved in our intelligence, much less heading up the CIA. If he does not follow the orders of the next president, which I hope is Donald Trump, he will be looking for another job. ISIS is cutting off heads, setting prisoners on fire and drowning them in steel cages but Brennan says no to 'waterboarding.'

This must make the members of ISIS and other terrorist groups feel good knowing if they are captured there will be no 'harsh' interrogation. The CIA director playing politics should be removed. He and the 'Establishment' are acting like humanitarians now because of what Donald Trump said with regard to terrorists.

Donald Trump On Waterboarding

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Pelosi - Still Denies She Was Briefed Concerning Waterboarding

Pelosi denies lying about waterboarding
Washington Examiner -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., reiterated that she never received a briefing on waterboarding, contrary to the former CIA counterterrorism head who says he personally briefed her on the interrogation techniques.

"This is once again totally false," Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill told The Washington Examiner. "The independent CIA Inspector General conducted a review and the findings are consistent with what Leader Pelosi has maintained all along."

In 2009, Pelosi denied knowing that the CIA waterboarded high-value terrorist detainees. "We were not -- I repeat -- were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used," she told reporters.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., contradicted Pelosi that same day. "It was not necessary to release details of the enhanced interrogation techniques, because members of Congress from both parties have been fully aware of them since the program began in 2002," the then-ranking member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence wrote in The Wall Street Journal. "After many long and contentious debates, Congress repeatedly approved and funded this program on a bipartisan basis in both Republican and Democratic Congresses."

Jose Rodriguez, who ran CIA's counterterrorism operations under President Bush, writes in a new book Hard Measures that Pelosi was told of a technique that was not being used, but adds that it was not waterboarding. Rodriguez claims he told Pelosi about the waterboarding and she did not object. Per Marc Thiessen: Rodriguez writes that neither Pelosi nor anyone else in the briefing objected to the techniques being used.

Entire column...

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Blog author's comments - I do believe they are going to have to break out the water board if they want to get the truth out of Nancy "Stretch" Pelosi. She is lost in a world of her own creation.

Let the facts (log sheet) of who was in attendance at the meeting be shown. This woman has proven by her actions over the last decade she has no integrity. Her credibility only exists in the far left of the Democratic Party and of course in the propagandized main stream media.

Sorry Nancy but I have to take the word of Mr. Jose Rodriguez over anything you have to say.

Barack Obama - Waterboarding Is Torture

Obama calls waterboarding 'torture'
Kapolei, Hawaii (AP) - At a news conference in Hawaii. a CNN White House correspondent brought up the weekend GOP debate and told the president that several candidates said in their view waterboarding is not torture.

President Barack Obama says the interrogation technique known as waterboarding constitutes torturing, disputing Republican presidential candidates who say they would reinstate the practice.

Obama called waterboarding "torture" and said it was "contrary to America's traditions" during a news conference at the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Republicans Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann said during a Republican debate on Saturday that they would reinstate the technique that former President George W. Bush authorized and Obama banned.

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Blog author's comments - Barack Obama...having you as President of our country for approximately three years, along with your policies and agenda is and has been 'torture'.

Scaring a few terrorist masterminds and making them physically uncomfortable by waterboarding, while getting information which saves the lives of American troops and citizens...that is not 'torture'.

What media bias? CNN reporter Dan Lothiam asked Obama in Hawaii if Republicans are "uninformed, out of touch, or irresponsible" on waterboarding?

Waterboarding Prisoner - Led to Bin Laden

Rush Limbaugh: Virtually Everything This President And His Party Opposed Was Utilized By Obama To Kill Osama Bin Laden

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CIA chief Panetta: Waterboarding aided bin Laden raid
Washington — Intelligence garnered from waterboarded detainees was used to track down al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and kill him, CIA Chief Leon Panetta told NBC News.

Panetta, in a 2009 CIA confirmation hearing declared "waterboarding is torture and it's wrong." said Tuesday that debate about its use will continue.

"Whether we would have gotten the same information through other approaches I think is always gonna be an open question," Panetta said.- Entire story > >

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Rumsfeld told Sean Hannity that enhanced interrogation
techniques did lead the US to Osama Bin Laden


Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: No one was waterboarded at Guantanamo by the US military. In fact no one was waterboarded at Guantanamo period. Three people were waterboarded by the CIA away from Guantanamo and then later were brought to Guantanamo. And, in fact, as you pointed out the information from these individuals was critically important.

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Blog author's comments - Barack Obama is taking all credit for the raid that killed Osama bin Laden which had it's beginning during the Bush administration.

The leftist MSM avoid any mention of what the Bush administration did which eventually led to the intelligence information which helped the CIA find the location of the Al Qaeda leader.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) House Homeland Security Committee Chairman: “The initial information on the courier was obtained from waterboarding in 2003. That came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed… People who were on the ground and very familiar to the situation told me this.”

Current and former U.S. officials say that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, provided the nom de guerre of one of bin Laden's most trusted aides. The CIA got similar information from Mohammed's successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi. Both were subjected to harsh interrogation tactics inside CIA prisons in Poland and Romania.

President Barack Obama closed the prison system.

Obama 2007 - Barack Obama, US Senator (D-IL), in an Oct. 4, 2007 press release titled "Obama: Torture and Secrecy Betray Core American Values," stated:

"The secret authorization of brutal interrogations is an outrageous betrayal of our core values, and a grave danger to our security. We must do whatever it takes to track down and capture or kill terrorists, but torture is not a part of the answer - it is a fundamental part of the problem with this administration's approach. Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them. Torture is how you get bad information, not good intelligence. Torture is how you set back America's standing in the world, not how you strengthen it. It's time to tell the world that America rejects torture without exception or equivocation. It's time to stop telling the American people one thing in public while doing something else in the shadows. No more secret authorization of methods like simulated drowning. When I am president America will once again be the country that stands up to these deplorable tactics. When I am president we won't work in secret to avoid honoring our laws and Constitution, we will be straight with the American people and true to our values."

h/t: uncoverage & dailyrushbo