“If she felt it was wrong, she should have acted,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a longtime waterboarding critic, told POLITICO on Tuesday. “Let me just tell you, I was briefed on it — and I vehemently objected to it. We did the Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibited cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.”…
Over the past week, a half-dozen senior Republican and Democratic aides canvassed by POLITICO have outlined a menu of options Pelosi could have pursued to protest harsh interrogations.
All agreed she could have written a classified letter to the CIA — as Rep. Jane Harman, her successor on the intelligence committee, did after she was briefed on the technique in February 2003.
Pelosi, they said, also could have pressured President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney directly by requesting a meeting with them, or by buttonholing them during previously scheduled meetings, or by writing a letter to them.
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