Bush approved CIA disclosure on water boarding

By Matt Spetalnick

CIA Director Michael Hayden testified before Congress on Tuesday that government interrogators used water boarding, often described as simulated drowning, on three suspects captured after the September 11 attacks of 2001.

"The president authorized Gen. Hayden to say what he said in the testimony yesterday," White House spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters.

Hayden told the Senate Intelligence Committee that water boarding was used on suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and senior al Qaeda leaders Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

"It is dependent on the circumstances," Fratto said.

"REALITIES HAVE CHANGED"

Congress is considering banning water boarding, a move opposed by the Bush administration, which insists it neither uses nor condones torture.

Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and judiciary committee member, demanded that Attorney General Michael Mukasey investigate the CIA water boarding and vowed to delay the nomination for Mukasey's deputy until the attorney general responds to that and other issues.

(Additional reporting by Randall Mikkelsen; editing by Stuart Grudgings)