Pelosi: CIA Misled Me on Waterboarding

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today she was not complicit in the government’s decision to waterboard terrorist suspects, and she claimed the CIA misled her about whether the interrogation technique considered torture by many was being used. “To the contrary … we were told explicitly that waterboarding was not being used,” the California Democrat said of a formal CIA briefing she received in fall 2002.

In 2003, she said, she was informed that senior lawmakers had been briefed on use of the method, but she was not included. In a 2002 briefing, officials referred to legal opinions saying that harsh interrogation techniques could be used, Pelosi said, but she was told they were not being employed. A CIA spokesman said it would be up to Congress to determine the accuracy of notes made by agency personnel at the time they briefed lawmakers. (More Nancy Pelosi stories.)