US President George W. Bush on Thursday refused to judge the CIA's destruction of videotapes of terrorist suspect interrogations, but broadly demised criticism of US questioning tactics.
Asked whether charges of mistreatment of prisoners hurt the US global image, Bush replied: "I don't want people to get the wrong impression of our country, but I'm not surprised we get criticised on a variety of fronts.
"And, you know, on the other hand, most people like to come to our country. And most people love what America stands for," said Bush, who was speaking at what was likely to be his final press conference of 2007.
Bush also said he had no recollection of learning about the existence of the recordings - which were made in 2002 and destroyed in 2005 - until CIA chief Michael Hayden briefed him about the growing controversy two weeks ago.
Pointing to investigations at the CIA, US Justice Department, and oversight by Congress, the president said the probes "will end up enabling us all to find out what exactly happened." "And therefore, over the course of these inquiries and oversight hearings, I'm going to reserve judgement until I find out the full facts," he said.
The White House has gone into a defensive crouch over the revelation that the videotapes were destroyed, refusing to detail what role if any it played as critics clamour for an independent investigation.
Bush, who has called US democratic values a crucial weapon in the "great ideological struggle" that is the global war on terrorism, brushed off concerns that the growing controversy hurt Washington's efforts.
"We get criticised a lot for a variety of reasons. We're asking people to do hard things, for starters, which is intercept and find terrorists and to spread freedom. And there's isolationist tendencies in this world," he said. "People would rather, you know, stay at home. They would rather not aggressively pursue people overseas and aggressively pursue freedom," he said.
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