CIA Chief Michael Hayden Defends 'Lawful' Interrogation Practices [View All]

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON --CIA Director Michael Hayden defended his agency's interrogation practices Tuesday as political pressure mounted on President Bush's attorney general nominee to reject a technique that allegedly was part of the CIA's interrogation program.

"Our programs are as lawful as they are valuable," Hayden said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. "The best sources of information on terrorists and their plans are the terrorists themselves."

Hayden said "the irreplaceable nature of that intelligence is the sole reason we have rendition, detention and interrogation programs."

Several senior Senate Democrats had vowed to vote against the president's nominee for attorney general, Michael Mukasey, unless he stated unequivocally that the practice of "waterboarding" is torture. That would render the practice illegal. The U.S. military already forbids it.

---
In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats late Tuesday, Mukasey called waterboarding "repugnant" but said he didn't know if it is illegal because he hasn't been cleared to receive a classified briefing on it. If after further study he finds that it is, he would rescind any federal legal opinion that allows its use, he wrote.

Read more: http://www.bnd.com/326/story/166252.html