Rove: 'I'm Proud' of Waterboarding

Technique helped break terrorists' will, 'Bush's brain' says
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 12, 2010 2:34 AM CST
Rove: 'I'm Proud' of Waterboarding
Karl Rove Former senior advisor and deputy chief of staff to George W. Bush, makes an appearance on NBC's "Today" show to promote his new book "Courage and Consequence."   (AP Photo/NBC, Peter Kramer)

Karl Rove is proud of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques used under the Bush administration, he said in an interview. He is "proud we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists," the memoir-touting Bush adviser told a BBC reporter, boasting that harsh interrogation tactics had helped prevent terrorist attacks on the US and Britain.

"Yes, I'm proud that we kept the world safer than it was, by the use of these techniques," Rove said. "They're appropriate, they're in conformity with our international requirements and with US law." Waterboarding—which President Obama banned last year—isn't torture, Rove argued. His new memoir defends the Bush administration as "impressive, durable and significant." (More Karl Rove stories.)

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