Last we checked, the only member of Congress briefed on torture in September 2002 who agreed with the CIA’s representation of that meeting was Richard Shelby. After Greg Sargent asked him point blank whether they were told about waterboarding, Shelby said,
To Senator Shelby’s recollection of the Senate briefing, waterboarding was one the EITs the CIA said it had used. As he also recalls, the CIA described the valuable intelligence it obtained using EITs, including waterboarding.
Now, as I pointed out yesterday, an anonymous source who is almost certainly the Shelby staffer in that meeting, Bill Duhnke, seems to remember the meeting similarly to Bob Graham. So Shelby’s story was already getting a little wobbly, even ignoring the credibility afforded Graham’s story by his extensive notes.
Well, Shelby’s wobbly story just got shot to hell by his own big mouth. This morning, he described a meeting attended by all four Gang of Four members, rather than two and two as the CIA shows. (h/t Bob Fertik)
KING: Vice President Cheney wants other memos released. Should we just have full disclosure on all fronts here, transparency, let the American people decide?
SHELBY: Well, that’s a tough road to go down. What we are basically doing is weakening our intelligence agencies and we will pay dearly for that. I was in that meeting, Senator Graham, Congressman Goss, Congresswoman Pelosi at that time, four of us were in the meeting.
And I came away from there believing that the enhanced interrogation techniques were working, they were getting good information. This was in ’02. I thought we had a pretty good description of what was happening by the CIA.
But, you know, they are the ones that were there. It has been seven years. But I believe that we ought to err on the side of national security, I thought then and I know it now. [my emphasis]
Uh, if four of you were in the meeting, then the CIA’s records are wrong, which means we shouldn’t trust their version of that briefing. And if not–as seems to be the case–then Shelby’s wrong even about the basic circumstances of the briefing. Shelby’s follow-on, "they are the ones that were there. It has been seven years" seems like a giant hedge. Or maybe a confession on Shelby’s part that even when he’s "there," he’s not all there.
Mind you, I never believed Shelby’s story had much credibility in the first place. But I’m glad to see he agrees with me.