Pelosi Says She Knew of Waterboarding by 2003 [View All]

[Frank Booth]

Source: NY Times

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, acknowledged for the first time Thursday that she knew by early 2003 that the Central Intelligence Agency had subjected terror detainees to waterboarding but saw little recourse to challenge the practice except by achieving Democratic control of Congress and the White House.

Ms. Pelosi offered her account at a tense news conference as she was pressed for a full accounting of when she became aware that the Bush administration had sanctioned harsh interrogation techniques.

The issue is emerging as one of the toughest tests of Ms. Pelosi’s tenure, as she finds herself fending off accusations of hypocrisy from Republicans for criticizing the interrogation methods, even though she had known about them, and from liberal critics who say that she should have raised the alarm earlier if she knew what was transpiring.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15cong.html?ref=us