Pelosi tells what she knew when on torture

WASHINGTON, May 14 (UPI) -- U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Bush administration officials told legislators enhanced interrogation methods were legal and waterboarding wasn't in use.

Only later was it revealed that there were "contrary opinions" about the legality of enhanced interrogation methods used by the CIA on terror suspects but they weren't shared by administration officials with appropriate congressional members, Pelosi said during a news conference Thursday.

Pelosi, D-Calif., called the conference to discuss what she knew about waterboarding -- which simulates drowning -- and other interrogation techniques and when she knew it.

Pelosi, as the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee at the time, was briefed in September 2002 about interrogation techniques used on suspected terrorist prisoners. At the time, she said, she was told waterboarding was "not being employed."

"Those briefing me in 2002 gave me inaccurate and incomplete information," Pelosi said, calling recent Republican statements that she knew of the techniques "a diversionary tactic" to move the spotlight from the released memos saying the methods were illegal.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, disputed Pelosi's accusation, telling his own news conference he could not imagine intelligence officials lying to Congress.

After she was no longer the ranking Democrat on the intelligence panel, Pelosi said she was "informed" that waterboarding was being used.

She renewed her call for a truth commission convened to investigate the issue, but if and until such a panel is constituted, appropriate House committees could investigate.

"I think the American people want to know how we got to this place," Pelosi said.

"This is their (the Bush administration's) policy," Pelosi said. "This is what they conceived. This is what they developed. This is what they implemented."