Bush says torture still necessary

With days left in office and an abysmal approval rating, President Bush is still defending the use of torture.

In an interview on Fox News, Bush told Brit Hume that he approved enhanced interrogation tactics for suspected terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

“My view is the techniques were necessary and are necessary,” Bush said.

The Bush administration has faced scathing criticism from those who say waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation tactics approved by Bush to be torture.

The president disagreed with notion that such tactics amount to torture.

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“I firmly reject the word ‘torture,’” Bush said.

The Bush administration helped create an unclear legal landscape (at best) as to whether waterboarding was outlawed.

President-elect Barack Obama rejects the Bush administration’s equivocations about waterboarding, however.

“Vice President Cheney, I think, continues to defend what he calls extraordinary measures or procedures when it comes to interrogations and from my view waterboarding is torture,” Obama said.

This video is from Fox’s Fox News Sunday, broadcast Jan. 11, 2009.