Harman: In Her Own Words

Over at the New Republic‘s Plank blog, Michael Crowley raised eyebrows with a couple striking pre-invasion quotes from could-be House intel chair Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA). Glenn Greenwald added a couple more, detailing Harman’s for-it-but-against-it take on the NSA’s domestic wiretapping program.

If Democrats are looking for a chief intelligence overseer who will be strong on constitutional protections and intel analysis that “gets it right,” these quotes indicate they may want to look beyond “the best Republican in the Democratic party,” as Harman has called herself.

Harman on-the-record quotes are legion, likely owing in no small part to her love of the spotlight (and the microphone). We’ve put a few we dug up together with those already unearthed. Heard a good Harman quote? Send it along.

On Colin Powell’s U.N. speech: “I happen to know that our intelligence agencies made absolutely certain that it was totally accurate, and that anything put out there had been reviewed 100 times to make sure it was accurate.” (Fox News, Big Story with John Gibson, 2/6/03)

On Saddam Hussein’s WMDs: “There’s a strong intelligence case that Iraq has not destroyed its weapons of mass destruction and is building the capability to use them.” (Washington Post, 1/30/03)

On the Iraq-al Qaeda connection: “There’s a growing al Qaeda presence in Iraq, and I think the case can be made that there is a growing affiliation [between the two.]” (Washington Post, 1/30/03)

On victory in Iraq: “[V]ictory will mean displaying for the world the evidence of weapons of mass destruction, and the horrors and torture of a generation of abuse by this dictator and then rebuilding the country with a multi-national coalition, and the emergence of an indigenous, transparent, moderate, democratic regime in Iraq run by the people of Iraq for them. I think that that will be a marvelous victory.” (CNN, Larry King Live, 3/19/03)

On the NSA domestic surveillance program: “I believe the program is essential to US national security and that disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities. . . . Due to its sensitive nature, I have been barred from discussing any aspect of this program. . . .[However] I am deeply concerned by reports that this program in fact goes far beyond the measures to target Al Qaeda[.]” (Harman press release, 12/21/05)

On the leak to the New York Times which revealed the program’s questionable operations: “I deplore that leak. . . I think it is tragic that a lot of our capability is now across the pages of the newspapers.” (NBC, Meet the Press, 2/12/06)

Eric Kleefeld contributed to this post.