Yesterday, former President Bush spoke at the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, MI, where he said that had no regrets about waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed 9/11 mastermind, and would do it again. According to Fox 17 in Grand Rapids, Bush “didn’t allow cameras inside for the event,” but reporters caught his remarks:
“Yeah, we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” the former president told a business audience in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “I’d do it again to save lives.”
Waterboarding Mohammed 183 times didn’t save any lives. In fact, Mohammed told U.S. military officials that he gave false information to the CIA after withstanding torture. Additionally, a former Special Operations interrogator who worked in Iraq has stated that waterboarding has actually cost American lives: “The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001.”