Waterboarding 'Saved British Lives': Bush

Former US President George W. Bush has claimed that information obtained from terrorists using the controversial technique of 'waterboarding' helped to save British lives.

In his memoirs, Mr Bush said that the use of the technique, which simulates drowning, resulted in information which was used to help foil plots to attack Heathrow and Canary Wharf.

The former President's memoirs, entitled Decision Points, is being serialised in The Times. In an interview with the paper, Mr Bush said that waterboarding had been used on three people and said: "I believe that decision saved lives".

He confirmed that the technique had been used to extract information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Al-Qaeda mastermind behind the 9/11 terror attacks. The technique was used on him by CIA agents following his capture in Pakistan in 2003.

In Decision Points, Mr Bush said: "Their interrogations helped break up plots to attack American diplomatic facilities abroad, Heathrow airport and Canary Wharf in London and multiple targets in the United States."

The British Government has said that it is strongly opposed to the use of waterboarding, regarding it as torture. Last month, the Head of MI6, John Sawers, said that the service had "nothing whatsoever" to do with torture, describing it as "illegal and abhorrent".

In the Times interview, Mr Bush also described his close relationship with Tony Blair and said that he offered the former Prime Minister the opportunity to opt out of sending British troops to Iraq, when he was facing a vote of no confidence in Parliament, prior to the war. He said: "Rather than lose the Government, I would much rather have Tony and his wisdom and his strategic thinking as the Prime Minister of a strong and important ally." However, he said that Mr Blair responded: "I'm in. If it costs the Government, fine."

Speaking about the public feeling in Britain towards the Iraq War, Mr Bush said: "It doesn't matter how people perceive me in England. It just doesn't matter any more. And franky, at times, it didn't matter then."

The former President also admitted that he was shocked that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, but he defended his decision to invade the country, arguing that Iraqi citizens were better off without the country's former leader Saddam Hussein.

(KMcA/BMcC)