Richard Shelby does balancing act

By GottaLaff

Oh come on, why bother with the coyness when it's so much easier to just blame Nance:

GOP Senator Richard Shelby, who was briefed along with Bob Graham on interrogations not long after Nancy Pelosi, has now weighed in on what he was told.

Shelby is walking a very delicate balancing act. While he’s contradicting Graham’s claim that torture techniques weren’t discussed, Shelby also stops short of saying he was told torture techniques were actually used — a distinction central to the current political war.

Shelby was briefed with Graham on September 27th 2002, about three weeks after Pelosi. Shelby’s spokesperson has now described the briefing to The Hill:

“As Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2002, Senator Shelby was briefed by the CIA on the Agency’s interrogation program and the existence of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs). To his recollection, not only did the CIA briefers provide what was purported to be a full account of the techniques, they also described the need for these techniques and the value of the information being obtained from terrorists during questioning. The Senate briefing also included an explanation of how these techniques were consistent with the law and with the national security interests of the U.S. To his recollection, while there was a great deal of discussion, there were no objections raised during the Senate briefing he attended.”

This is very carefully worded. It says Shelby was told about the “existence” of the techniques and given a “full account” of their existence. This doesn’t address whether they were used. He was also told about the “value of the information being obtained from terrorists during questioning,” but the statement conspicuously doesn’t say the info was obtained through the use of the techniques.

My post of the video of Bob Graham's statements here.

But this from Mark Knoller of CBS, via Twitter:

without mentioning Pelosi by name, CIA Dir. Leon Panetta denies her charge that CIA lied about not waterboarding in 2002.

Now what? We need hearings. Now.