Bush aide Karl Rove insists 'waterboarding is not torture'

George W Bush's former top adviser has said he is "proud" of the use of harsh interrogation techniques - including waterboarding - during the War on Terror.

Karl Rove, the Republican strategist widely known as "Bush's Brain", said in a BBC interview that he did not believe waterboarding, or simulated drowning, amounted to torture.

"I'm proud that we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists and gave us valuable information that allowed us to foil plots such as flying aeroplanes into Heathrow and into London, bringing down aircraft over the Pacific, flying an aeroplane into the tallest building in Los Angeles and other plots," Mr Rove told the BBC.

"Yes, I'm proud that we kept the world safer than it was, by the use of these techniques. They're appropriate, they're in conformity with our international requirements and with US law."

Mr Rove gave the interview to mark the publication of a memoir - Courage and Consequence - in which he argues that history will look favourably on Mr Bush’s two-term presidency, particularly his decision to invade Iraq.

In the book he calls the 2003 invasion the most consequential act of the Bush presidency and a justifiable response to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 - even though al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, not Saddam Hussein, were responsible.

Click to read more...