The White House Defends Its Use of Waterboarding

Yesterday, after years of refusing to comment directly, CIA Director Michael Hayden told a Senate committee that "waterboarding" was used on three terrorist suspects after September 11, when it was thought another attack might be imminent. Today, the Bush White House said for the first time that the practice is not torture and could be used again under certain specific conditions. Such simulated drowning, an interrogation technique traced back to the Spanish Inquisition, is condemned as "torture" by nations around the world. Greg Miller of the Los Angeles Times is the only American reporter granted access to the US interrogators in Kandahar, Afghanistan.