Seeking to damp a controversy prompted by her own remarks, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today refused to answer questions about her assertion that the CIA had misled her in 2002 about the use of waterboarding on terrorism suspects.
Pelosi (D-San Francisco) had told reporters on May 14 that the CIA had misled her during a 2002 briefing for top lawmakers involved in intelligence issues by not informing her that waterboarding already had been used on some detainees.
After the May 14 televised news conference, Pelosi said that the agency had "lied," a charge sharply and quickly disputed by CIA Director Leon E. Panetta.
"I have made the statement that I'm going to make on this," Pelosi said this morning at another televised news conference from Washington. "I don't have anything more to say about it. I stand by my comment."
Pelosi tried to move away from the torture issue, which has been seized upon by Republicans, by insisting she wants to focus on energy and healthcare issues, which are expected to dominate Congress after it returns from a Memorial Day break.
"What we are doing is staying on our course and not being distracted from it," she said, as top Democrats looked on to show their support for the speaker.
The torture issue has left Pelosi caught between Republicans seeking a political cudgel and her liberal allies, upset that she didn't speak out against the harsh interrogation used by the Bush administration.
In the autumn of 2002, Pelosi was the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. She has insisted she was briefed on the legality of waterboarding -- the practice of forcing water into a suspect's air passages so that he believes he will be drowned unless he talks to interrogators.
However, Pelosi insisted that she was not told that the technique had actually been used, though it already had been employed on some terrorism suspects. She said she learned of the use after leaving the committee.
Liberals have criticized Pelosi for not speaking out on the issue, but Republicans have been harsher. They have seized on the incident, trying to turn Pelosi into a target.
Part of the reason is that Pelosi is a visible enemy who can be used in fundraising appeals and other activities to rebuild the GOP, which has little direct power in Congress after the last election. Pelosi and other Democrats also support a truth commission to investigate interrogation techniques used under the Bush administration. Republicans oppose such an investigation, but if it takes place, they want Pelosi to be as much of a target as Bush officials.
