Republican candidate Jeb Bush says torture is inappropriate, but use of brutal questioning methods may be justifiable and necessary for the US government

Jeb Bush has declined to rule out the US resuming the use of torture – with the Republican presidential hopeful saying brutal questioning methods might be justifiable and necessary in some circumstances.

The former Florida governor said in general he believed torture was inappropriate and his brother, former President George W Bush, largely ended the CIA’s use of the techniques before he left office. The CIA had been using waterboarding, slapping, nudity, sleep deprivation, humiliation and other methods to coerce al-Qaida detainees – methods the military would be prohibited from using on prisoners of war.

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“I don’t want to make a definitive, blanket kind of statement,” Jeb Bush told an audience of Iowa Republicans, when asked whether he would keep in place or repeal President Barack Obama’s executive order banning so-called enhanced interrogation techniques by the CIA.

A Senate report released in 2014 cited CIA records in concluding that the techniques were more brutal than previously disclosed, that the CIA lied about them, and that they failed to produce unique, life-saving intelligence. The CIA and its defenders take issue with the report.



Jeb Bush said he believed the techniques were effective in producing intelligence but that “now we’re in a different environment.” He suggested there may be occasions when brutal interrogations were called for to keep the country safe.

“That’s why I’m not saying in every condition, under every possible scenario,” Bush said.

Later on Thursday in Iowa, Bush said there was a difference between enhanced interrogation and torture but declined to be specific. “I don’t know. I’m just saying if I’m going to be president of the United States you take this threat seriously.”

Bush has been walking a careful path, seeking to disassociate himself from some of the unpopular aspects of his brother’s legacy while praising him.

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In discussing the Iraq war, for example, Bush, who previously acknowledged that the intelligence didn’t support the decision to invade, on Thursday said he had learned from some of the mistakes made during the occupation, including what he said was a wrong decision to disband the Iraqi military. He said his brother also now believed that was a mistake. Bush blames the rise of the Islamic State group on what he said was Obama’s failure to negotiate an agreement to leave US troops there in 2011.

He repeated his call for a more aggressive posture toward the Islamic State group but, like the Obama administration, he opposes sending in regular US ground forces. He does favour putting special operations troops on the battlefield.

Spencer Ackerman writes: As president, Jeb Bush or any other successor to Barack Obama would be unimpeded in an attempt to reinstate of torture. Obama banned CIA torture by executive order in January 2009. To the chagrin of human-rights campaigners, the ban has no force of law, and can be overturned by a successor at whim. After political momentum resulting from the Senate intelligence committee’s investigation into CIA torture, the Senate passed a measure to codify the torture ban into law, but it has not passed the House.

Human rights advocates said Bush’s equivocation on torture was partially a result of Obama’s decision not to seek prosecution of any of the Bush administration torture architects. A Justice Department special inquiry into CIA officials who carried out waterboardings, “stress positions”, sensory deprivations and other torture techniques ended in 2012 without indictments.

“No top criminal accountability for torture leads to this,” tweeted Hina Shamsi, an ACLU attorney.