David R. Sands The Washington Times - March 21, 2011, 01:52PM

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was hospitalized briefly in Rome on Monday after arriving from a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan.

“After several flights yesterday in Afghanistan, and a long flight back to Italy that arrived early this morning, Leader Pelosi was not feeling well,” her office said in a statement. “This morning in Rome, [she] was advised to visit a clinic, and the closest medical facility was a hospital. [Mrs. Pelosi] is now resuming her schedule in Italy.”

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The Italian news agency ANSA reported Mrs. Pelosi, the California Democrat who lost the speaker’s post in November’s midterm elections, spent two hours undergoing tests in the emergency department of a Rome hospital before being released and returning to her hotel.

A press briefing with Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa and a top Italian parliamentarian that had been on Mrs. Pelosi’s schedule was postponed.

The U.S. Embassy in Rome declined to comment. The 70-year-old Mrs. Pelosi was heading a bipartisan congressional delegation to Afghanistan and stopped in Rome to mark the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification as a nation.