Nancy Pelosi: CIA LIED and Mislead Congress on Waterboarding

The House Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi story regading CIA enhanced interrogation techniques and waterboarding is changing again with a morning news conference.

Under fire from Republicans for what she knew about harsh questioning of terror detainees, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday acknowledged that she had learned as early as 2003 that the C.I.A. had subjected suspects to waterboarding.

At a tense press conference, Ms. Pelosi said for the first time that a staff member alerted her in February 2003 that top lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee had been briefed on the use of tough interrogation methods on terror suspects.

But she said the fact that she did not speak out at the time due to secrecy rules did not make her complicit in any abuse of detainees. She accused the C.I.A. and Bush administration of lying to Congress about what was actually transpiring with the detainees.

“I am saying that the C.I.A. was misleading the Congress and at the same the administration was misleading the Congress on weapons of mass destruction,” Ms. Pelosi said.

Republicans immediately took issue with the speaker’s comments, saying that she was in essence blaming the intelligence professionals for misleading her.

“The speaker’s comments continue to raise more questions than provide answers,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader.

He added, in comments broadcast on television: “It’s pretty clear that they were well aware of what these enhanced interrogation techniques were; they were well aware that they’d been used; and it seems to me that they want to have it both ways.”

“You can’t have it both ways.”

Speaker Pelosi says she wants a “truth commission” to investigate this matter.

Pelosi renewed her call for a so-called truth commission to investigate the events in the Bush administration that led to the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques. While President Barack Obama has banned waterboarding, calling it torture, he has been notably cool toward an independent inquiry that might distract attention from his domestic agenda.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also has expressed opposition, as have congressional Republicans.

Well, it is obvious that somebody is lying here and the American pulbic deserves some accountability.

I say have a Congressional investigation, place everyone under oath, on television and let’s sweat some truth out of these folks.

Here is the video from this morning: