CIA documents say Speaker Pelosi was told about enhanced interrogation techniques

"We were not, I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used."

Nancy Pelosi on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 in a news conference.

In an April 23, 2009 press conference, Pelosi was asked if, during the fall of 2002, she and other key members of the Intelligence Committee, were briefed on interrogation methods, including waterboarding.

Pelosi said that only on one occasion had she received a CIA briefing on interrogation techniques, but that "We were not, I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used. What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel -- the Office of Legislative Counsel opinions that they could be used, but not that they would.

"Further," she said, "the point was that if and when they would be used, they could brief Congress at that time...My experience was they did not tell us they were using that, flat out. And any contention to the contrary is simply not true."

But her comments are directly contradicted by a CIA timeline prepared by the Director of National Intelligence that indicates Pelosi and Porter Goss, R-Florida, then-Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, were briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques.

Specifically, the CIA timeline states that on Sept. 4, 2002, Pelosi and Goss received a "Briefing on EITs (enhanced interrogation techniques) including use of EITs on (alleged al-Qaeda operative) Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed."

That briefing came a month after the CIA began using Justice Department-approved enhanced interrogation techniques - including the drowning simulation technique known as waterboarding  - on Abu Zubaydah, according to a Justice Department memo released last month.