Pelosi may have been briefed on use waterboarding, says CIA document
An intelligence document indicates that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques in 2002 when she was the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee. That briefing may have including waterboarding and, as the Wall Street Journal points out, the document appears to contradict statements Pelosi has since made claiming to not of known waterboarding occurred.
Here is Pelosi’s response from the Wall Street Journal:
Ms. Pelosi’s spokesman Thursday reiterated the speaker’s earlier contention that she was told in the briefing that waterboarding had been authorized but not yet used.
…Ms. Pelosi’s spokesman Brendan Daly said of the September 2002 briefing, “The briefers described these techniques, said they were legal, but said that waterboarding had not yet been used.”
The document describes 40 lawmaker briefings, including a Sept. 4, 2002 briefing of Pelosi and then House intelligence committee chairman Porter Goss (R-Fla.). That briefing coverered “enhanced interrogation techniques” used on detainee Abu Zubaydah. A 2005 Justice Department memo has since found that waterboarding was used at least 83 times on Zubaydah during around the time of the briefing. So, presumably, the techniques upon which Pelosi was briefed may have included waterboarding.
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