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Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - 06.12 GMT |
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George Bush
defends torture |
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America's use of waterboarding to interrogate suspected terrorists saved British lives by stopping attacks on Heathrow and Canary Wharf, George W Bush claims in a new book.
In his memoirs, the former U.S. President defended the technique, rejected by the British government as torture, UK's Daily Mail reported today (10 Nov).
In an interview today, Mr Bush also praises Tony Blair as his closest ally but is dismissive about British public opinion about the war in Iraq.
Ending two years of public silence since he left the White House, Mr Bush said three suspects were waterboarded to provide information about the plots.
‘Their interrogations helped break up plots to attack American diplomatic families abroad, Heathrow Airport and Canary Wharf in London, and multiple targets in the United States,’ he writes in Decision Points, published in the U.S. Today.
Mr Bush also claims in the book that he ordered a plan to be drawn up for a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
He admits that he authorised the use of waterboarding on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed architect of the September 11 attacks, calling his decision ‘damn right’.
He writes: ‘We capture the guy, the chief operating officer of Al Qaeda, who kills 3,000 people. We felt he had information about another attack.
‘He says, “I’ll talk to you when I get my lawyer.” I say, “What options are available and legal?”... As president your job is to protect your country.’
Last month Sir John Sawers, the chief of MI6, said in a speech that his service had ‘nothing whatsoever’ to do with torture, which he described as ‘illegal and abhorrent’.
But he was more vague about using information obtained by allies from such means, adding that the service ‘had a duty’ to act on such information if it ‘might save lives’.
British MPs today doubted Mr Bush's claims that waterboarding saved British lives. Former Labour minister Kim Howells said the former president was wrong: 'Where I doubt what President Bush has said is that what we regard as torture, waterboarding, actually produced information which was instrumental in preventing those plots coming to fruition and murdering people'.
Tory MP David Davis said he had recently had a conversation with a former head of M16 who was 'furious' about the use of waterboarding: 'He said we never learn this lesson. In the second world war the British intelligence services didn't use torture, the Gestapo did. The Gestapo got some information, but lots of wrong information. We were much, much more effective by using brains, not brutality. Even the Americans now recognise that', Mr Davis said.
Mr Bush’s 497-page memoirs, backed by a series of high-profile U.S. television interviews this week, have been seen as a belated attempt to rehabilitate his tarnished presidency by explaining some of his most controversial decisions.
He claims that he was a ‘dissenting voice’ opposing colleagues who wanted to invade Iraq in 2003, although he stands by his decision to oust Saddam Hussein.
And he said he offered Tony Blair the opportunity to back out of the invasion to save the prime minister’s political position at home, but Mr Blair refused.
In an interview in The Times today, Mr Bush praised Mr Blair as his closest ally but was dismissive about British public opinion about the war in Iraq.
‘It doesn’t matter how people perceive me in England. It just doesn’t matter any more. And frankly, at times, it didn’t matter then,’ he said.
Mr Bush recalled how when Mr Blair faced a possible vote of no confidence in Parliament on the eve of war, he offered him the chance to opt out of sending British troops into Iraq.
He said that 'rather than lose the government, I would much rather have Tony and his wisdom and his strategic thinking as the prime minister of a strong and important ally'.
However, Mr Blair told him: 'I'm in. If it costs the government, fine.'
He added that he was appalled to discover that intelligence about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction had proved wrong.
‘The reality was that I had sent American troops into combat based in large part on intelligence that proved false,’ he writes.
‘No-one was more shocked or angry than I was when we didn’t find the weapons.
‘I had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it.
‘I still do.’
Although there were ‘things we got wrong in Iraq’, the objective of removing Saddam was ‘eternally right’, he writes. On Iran, he says: ‘I directed the Pentagon to study what would be necessary for a strike.
‘This would be to stop the bomb clock, at least temporarily.’
He said that he also considered mounting an air strike or a covert raid on a secret Syrian nuclear facility, but the Pentagon and the CIA concluded it was ‘too risky’.
Recalling his reaction after the September 11 hijackers flew a plane into the Pentagon, he writes: ‘My blood was boiling. We were going to find out who did this...’
Other claims in the book include that Dick Cheney, Mr Bush’s deeply divisive vice-president, suggested the president drop him from his 2004 re-election campaign to quell accusations that he ran the presidency.
Mr Bush also admits that it took ‘too long’ for the government to react to the disaster in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
He said being accused of racism in the aftermath was the ‘worst moment’ of his presidency.
Critics say waterboarding can result in long-lasting psychological damage, injury to the lungs and even in extreme cases death.
Earlier this year, Mr Bush’s former deputy chief of staff Karl Rove – known as the president’s ‘brain’ – said he did not believe that the interrogation method amounted to torture.
‘I am proud that we kept the world safer than it was by the use of these techniques,’ he said.
‘Every one of the people who were waterboarded had a doctor who had to ascertain that there had been no long-lasting physical or mental damage to the individual
As for Mr Bush’s long-term legacy, he says he believes it will be decades before his presidency can really be judged, writing: ‘I’m comfortable with the fact that I won’t be around to hear it.’
Courtesy: The Daily Mail
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