WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday accused the Bush administration and the CIA of misleading Congress about waterboarding prisoners, escalating a political fight with Republicans over her knowledge of the treatment of detainees.
Separately Thursday, the CIA rejected a request from former Vice President Dick Cheney to declassify memos that Cheney has said show that the agency's severe interrogation methods were crucial to getting information from detainees that helped disrupt terrorism plots.
The two developments underscore how the classified details of the CIA's interrogation operations are fueling political skirmishes months after the program was shut down by President Obama.
In her most detailed account to date, Pelosi said she was told during a classified briefing in September 2002 that the CIA was not engaged in waterboarding, even though records now indicate that the agency had employed the method dozens of times on an Al Qaeda suspect one month earlier.
"The CIA was misleading the Congress" as part of a broader Bush administration pattern of deception about its activities, said Pelosi (D-San Francisco).
"The only mention of waterboarding at that briefing was that it was not being employed," she said, adding, "We now know that earlier, they were."
Pelosi's comments amount to an allegation that the CIA violated its legal obligation to keep congressional leaders accurately informed. Republicans responded by ratcheting up their criticism of Pelosi.
"I think the problem is that the speaker has had way too many stories on this issue," said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).
Boehner said that given the briefings that were provided to Pelosi and other Democrats, their recent criticism, following their initial silence, is an attempt "to have it both ways."
"It's pretty clear that they were well aware of what these enhanced interrogation techniques were," he said.
Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), the ranking Republican on the intelligence committee, said it was "outrageous that a member of Congress would call our terror-fighters liars."
The controversy has become a political side-show to the broader debate over CIA interrogation methods that Obama banned during his first week in office -- a decision that Cheney and other Republicans have alleged will make the nation less safe.
