JENNIFER LOVEN, AP News

The White House on Wednesday defended the use of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding, saying it is legal — not torture as critics argue — and has saved American lives. President Bush could authorize waterboarding for future terrorism suspects if certain criteria are met, a spokesman said.

A day earlier, the Bush administration acknowledged publicly for the first time that the tactic was used by U.S. government questioners on three terror suspects. Testifying before Congress, CIA Director Michael Hayden said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003.

Waterboarding involves strapping a suspect down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning. It has been traced back hundreds of years, to the Spanish Inquisition, and is condemned by nations around the world.

Hayden banned the technique in 2006 for CIA interrogations, the Pentagon has banned its employees from using it, and FBI Director Robert Mueller said his investigators do not use coercive tactics in interviewing terror suspects.

Senate Democrats demanded a criminal investigation after Hayden’s revelation.

Bush personally authorized Hayden’s testimony, White House deputy spokesman Tony Fratto said.

“There’s been a lot written out there — newspaper, magazine articles, some of it misinformation,” Fratto said. “And so the consensus was that on this one particular technique that these officials would have the opportunity to address them — in not just a public setting, but in a setting in front of members of Congress, and to be very clear about how those techniques were used and what the benefits were of them.”

(Original Article)