They Were Actually For It . . .

. . . before they decided to criminalize it.

Porter Goss, former CIA Director and Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, brings some welcome perspective to the debate on interrogation techniques.

Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as “waterboarding” were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:

– The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.

– We understood what the CIA was doing.

– We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.

– We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.

– On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.

Now, the same members of Congress who knew what was going on and gave their consent are poised to launch investigations and even prosecutions of those who carried out these (formerly) bi-partisan policies. This Inquisition is just getting started, and before cooler heads prevails, it will do more damage to the intelligence services than the Church Committee.