The United States may use waterboarding to question terrorism suspects in the future, the White House said Wednesday, rejecting the widely held belief that the practice amounts to torture.
"It will depend upon circumstances," spokesman Tony Fratto said, adding "the belief that an attack might be imminent, that could be a circumstance that you would definitely want to consider."
"The president will listen to the considered judgement of the professionals in the intelligence community and the judgement of the attorney general in terms of the legal consequences of employing a particular technique," he said. His comments came one day after CIA director Michael Hayden for the first time admitted publicly that the agency had used "waterboarding," a practice that amounts to controlled drowning, to question three top al Qaeda detainees nearly five years ago.
After years of insisting that disclosing any specific interrogation techniques would harm US national security, US President George W. Bush "authorised General Hayden to say what he said," Fratto told reporters.
"The cumulative impact of public discussion about that technique led to a consensus that an exception was warranted in this case," the spokesman said. "There's been a lot written out there, in newspaper, magazine articles, some of it misinformation, and so the consensus was on the his one particular technique" a public defence was necessary, said Fratto.
Asked what factors Bush would weigh in deciding whether to reauthorize the use of waterboarding or other "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by the CIA since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Fratto offered few details.
He said that the CIA director would go to the attorney general to discuss "the circumstances under which a particular technique would be used, what the safeguards are" and then the attorney general would reach a conclusion on the legality of the practice before taking the issue to the White House. "The president will listen to his advisers" and make a determination, said Fratto, who rejected charges that the tactics the Central Intelligence Agency calls "enhanced interrogation techniques" amount to torture.
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