US won't rule out waterboarding

Feb 7, 2008, 0:17 GMT

Washington - The White House on Wednesday did not rule out the possibility of using waterboarding in the future after the CIA director admitted the agency used the technique to get information from three top al-Qaeda operatives.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters that the CIA would have to get the approval of President George W Bush before waterboarding could be used, but added that currently the agency is not authorized to use the practice on anyone.

'I'm not speculating at all on what circumstances in the future would cause the director of the CIA to make a proposal in that way,' Fratto said, adding that waterboarding was not torture.

CIA Director Michael Hayden told a Senate commmittee on Tuesday the three high level al-Qaeda detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks who was captured in Pakistan in 2003, were subjected to waterboarding.

'We used it against these three high-value detainees because of the circumstances of the time,' Hayden said. 'Very critical to those circumstances was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were imminent.'

The practice was also used on Abu Zubaydah, one of Osama bin Laden's closest deputies until his capture in Pakistan in 2002, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a senior level al-Qaeda operations planner captured in the United Arab Emirates in 2002.

All three men are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after spending years in secret CIA prisons.