Jeb Bush refuses to rule out use of torture

Davenport ( Iowa), Aug. 14: Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush declined to rule out resuming the use of torture under some circumstances by the US government if he becomes President.

The former Florida governor on Thursday said that in general, he believes torture is inappropriate, and that he was glad his brother, former President George W. Bush, largely ended the CIA’s use of the techniques before he left office.

The CIA used waterboarding, slapping, nudity, sleep deprivation, humiliation and other methods to coerce Al Qaeda detainees, methods the military would be prohibited from using on prisoners of war.

“I don’t want to make a definitive, blanket kind of statement,” Mr Bush told an audience of Iowa Republicans, when asked whether he would keep in place or repeal President Barack Obama’s executive order banning so- called enhanced interrogation techniques by the CIA.

A Senate report released last year cited CIA records in concluding that the techniques were more brutal than previously disclosed, that the CIA lied about them, and that they failed to produce unique, life- saving intelligence. The CIA and its defenders take issue with the report.

Jeb Bush said he believed that the techniques were effective in producing intelligence, but that “now we’re in a different environment.” — AP