Unearthed: News of the Week the Mainstream Media Forgot to Report - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Brendan DeMelle

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft told the House Judiciary Committee last week that waterboarding is not torture. Ashcroft also claims waterboarding is more effective than other interrogation techniques and has served a "very valuable" purpose.

"I believe a report of waterboarding would be serious, but I do not believe it would define torture," Ashcroft testified. He added, "the Department of Justice has on a consistent basis over the last half-dozen years or so, over and over again in its evaluations, come to the conclusion that under the law in existence during my time as attorney general, waterboarding did not constitute torture."

Republican Representative Howard Coble of North Carolina asked Ashcroft, "Waterboarding, as we all know, is a controversial issue. Do you think it served a beneficial purpose?"

"The reports that I have heard, and I have no reason to disbelieve them, indicate that they were very valuable," Ashcroft replied, adding that CIA Director George Tenet indicated the "value of the information received from the use of enhanced interrogation techniques -- I don't know whether he was saying waterboarding or not, but assume that he was for a moment -- the value of that information exceeded the value of information that was received from all other sources."

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