WASHINGTON — CIA Director Leon Panetta on Friday fired back at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying agency records showed officials had briefed her truthfully about its interrogation program. He also urged the CIA workforce to ignore the political rancor consuming Capitol Hill.
Panetta’s comments came one day after Pelosi accused the agency of misleading Congress by failing to inform her during a fall 2002 briefing that the CIA had used waterboarding and other severe methods on an al-Qaeda suspect.
Panetta’s statement, which was directed to CIA employees but released publicly, marked a rare instance in which the secretive agency’s leadership has chosen to publicly challenge a high-ranking lawmaker.
“Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress,” said Panetta, a former U.S. House member from California. “That is against our laws and our values.”
Republicans have accused Pelosi of hypocrisy for being a vocal critic of the CIA’s interrogation operations even though she appears to have made little attempt to alter the program when she learned about it more than six years ago.
CIA records indicate that Pelosi attended a briefing in September 2002 during which she was told about agency interrogation techniques that had been used. The records do not indicate with certainty that waterboarding was covered.
A month earlier, the CIA had used the simulated drowning method on al-Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times.
Pelosi repeatedly has claimed that she was not told that waterboarding was being used, only that it was under consideration. But Thursday she raised the stakes of the issue by accusing the CIA of deliberately concealing the truth.
