IWP Chancellor Amb. James Woolsey went on Fox Business to discuss the recent conversation over CIA Director John O. Brennan disallowing waterboarding as an interrogation technique.
Amb. Woolsey said that Mr. Brennan clearly “felt very strongly about an important issue,” but the Constitution didn’t have a “clause that says the American President has these authorities, footnote except that the CIA can overrule the President on some things.”
When the topic turned to waterboarding itself, Amb. Woolsey said “there’s a reasonable argument about whether waterboarding is or is not illegal under international law” and that “some use of it may be quite called for when something terrible is about to happen.”
Amb. Woolsey went on to say that “waterboarding can be argued is not torture,” citing the usage of waterboarding on Special Forces during training. Amb. Woolsey said that under “extreme instances,” waterboarding could be used, but that we shouldn’t “try to match ISIS.”