Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer ripped C0ngressional Democrats for making hay out of the CIA's enhanced interrogation program 12 years after the fact Monday on Fox News.
Krauthammer said Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D., Calif.) Senate Intel Committee report lacked proper context of the increased threat environment after 9/11 when many people expected an imminent second attack.
Moreover, Krauthammer cited a 2009 editorial from former Rep. Porter Goss (R., Fla.) who wrote that the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees were fully briefed on the enhanced interrogation programs and no one expressed objection.
"This was an appropriate response of a country that was attacked out of the blue, had no idea what to do and had to immediately respond," Krauthammer said.
"And even if it didn't contribute to the War on Terror, which I'm sure it did, but even if you concede that somehow in the end it didn't, there was no way to know at the time. If you were in charge you wanted to make sure that you erred on the side of gathering information. Because the risk was to lose 3,000 more Americans."
Full remarks:
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER Here we are dealing with a lot of post facto condemnation in an atmosphere 12 years later when the threat and the crisis has passed and not remembering at all the context 12 years ago when we all expected a second attack within months. They had to sacrifice reputation. If they did sacrifice reputation and save thousands of American lives, it was a good bargain. But the hypocrisy here on the part of the Democrats, who are the author of this report, is astonishing. Porter Goss was the head of the House Intelligence Committee and the ranking member was Nancy Pelosi. And here's what he wrote in the The Washington Post. I think we have this. He says the chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Cenate committees known as the "gang of four" were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high valued terrorists. We understood what the CIA was doing. We gave the CIA bipartisan support. I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. Now, all of a sudden 10 years later everybody is aghast, this is Cheneyism, it is not. This was an appropriate response of a country that was attacked out of the blue, had no idea what to do and had to immediately respond. And even if it didn't contribute to the war on terror which I'm sure it did. But even if you concede that somehow in the end it didn't, there was no way to know at the time. If you were in charge you wanted to make sure that you erred on the side of gathering information. Because the risk was to lose 3,000 more Americans.