The speaker of the US House of Representatives says she was misled by the CIA about the use of harsh methods during terror interrogations.

Nancy Pelosi has been under pressure to clarify what she knew since one of her aides said she had been briefed in 2003 that the CIA had waterboarded suspects.

Critics say the methods amount to torture and that officials who authorised them should be prosecuted.

Ms Pelosi has herself condemned the use of harsh interrogation techniques.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8050930.stm

meanwhile .....

There's a big piece of news about Dick Cheney and torture buried toward the end of this big Washington Post piece about the torture wars.

Specifically: The White House has decided to declassify and release a classified 2004 CIA report about the torture program that is reported to have found no proof that torture foiled any terror plots on American soil - directly contradicting Cheney's claims. The paper cites "allies" of the White House as a source.

Democrat Congressional staffers tell me this report is the "holy grail," because it is expected to detail torture in unprecedented detail and to cast doubt on the claim that torture works - and its release will almost certainly trigger howls of protest from conservatives. Tellingly, neither the CIA nor the White House knocked down the story in response to my questions, with spokespeople for both declining comment. Here's the key nugget from the Post piece:

Government officials familiar with the CIA's early interrogations say the most powerful evidence of apparent excesses is contained in the "top secret" May 7, 2004, inspector general report, based on more than 100 interviews, a review of the videotapes and 38,000 pages of documents. The full report remains closely held, although White House officials have told political allies that they intend to declassify it for public release when the debate quiets over last month's release of the Justice Department's interrogation memos...

Although some useful information was produced, the report concluded that "it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations have provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks," according to the Justice Department's declassified summary of it.

This news is particularly timely in light of Cheney's continuing high-profile claims that torture may have saved "hundreds of thousands of lives."

The release of this thing is going to be a big deal.