by Paul Kane
The Washington Post
Thursday, May 14, 2009; 4:47 PM
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today accused the CIA of "misleading" her on the use of harsh interrogation techniques in the fall of 2002, acknowledging for the first time publicly she knew alleged terrorist detainees were subjected to waterboarding more than six years ago.
Pelosi called for the CIA to release detailed notes from her own September 2002 briefing about interrogation techniques.She said today that, at that 2002 briefing, she was told the CIA was not waterboarding detainees despite later government reports showing that a high value al Qaeda detainee had been subjected to waterboarding 83 times in the weeks leading up to Pelosi's briefing.
"At every step of the way, the administration was misleading the Congress. And that is the issue," Pelosi said in a heated news conference, linking the alleged misinformation on waterboarding to now discredited intelligence reports in fall 2002 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Today was Pelosi's first chance to address the interrogation briefing issue since the CIA released a detailed memo last Thursday outlining 40 congressional briefings given since September 2002 regarding the use of what it calls "enhanced interrogation techniques" on suspected terrorists. That memo included footnotes that appeared to contradict Pelosi's previous statements that she was never personally briefed by Bush administration officials on the use of such tactics, including waterboading, a controversial technique that simulates drowning.
In a statement today, the agency stood by its memo, which said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.), the top members of the intelligence committee at the time, were briefed on Sept. 4, 2002 on the "the use of EITS" on an al Qaeda prisoner. "The language in the chart--'a description of the particular EITs that had been employed'--is true to the language in the Agency's records," a CIA spokesman said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/14AR2009051403192.html
Nancy Pelosi was sweating bullets during this news conferance--she was as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof. This is now her 5th changed explanation of events regarding the over 40 meetings (while on the house intelligence commitee) that she attended while being briefed on the enhanced interrogation technics.
The Washington Post
Thursday, May 14, 2009; 4:47 PM
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today accused the CIA of "misleading" her on the use of harsh interrogation techniques in the fall of 2002, acknowledging for the first time publicly she knew alleged terrorist detainees were subjected to waterboarding more than six years ago.
Pelosi called for the CIA to release detailed notes from her own September 2002 briefing about interrogation techniques.She said today that, at that 2002 briefing, she was told the CIA was not waterboarding detainees despite later government reports showing that a high value al Qaeda detainee had been subjected to waterboarding 83 times in the weeks leading up to Pelosi's briefing.
"At every step of the way, the administration was misleading the Congress. And that is the issue," Pelosi said in a heated news conference, linking the alleged misinformation on waterboarding to now discredited intelligence reports in fall 2002 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Today was Pelosi's first chance to address the interrogation briefing issue since the CIA released a detailed memo last Thursday outlining 40 congressional briefings given since September 2002 regarding the use of what it calls "enhanced interrogation techniques" on suspected terrorists. That memo included footnotes that appeared to contradict Pelosi's previous statements that she was never personally briefed by Bush administration officials on the use of such tactics, including waterboading, a controversial technique that simulates drowning.
In a statement today, the agency stood by its memo, which said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.), the top members of the intelligence committee at the time, were briefed on Sept. 4, 2002 on the "the use of EITS" on an al Qaeda prisoner. "The language in the chart--'a description of the particular EITs that had been employed'--is true to the language in the Agency's records," a CIA spokesman said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/14AR2009051403192.html
Nancy Pelosi was sweating bullets during this news conferance--she was as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof. This is now her 5th changed explanation of events regarding the over 40 meetings (while on the house intelligence commitee) that she attended while being briefed on the enhanced interrogation technics.
