On 1/7/09, Bush repeated his torture defense in a lengthy TV interview with FOX's Brit Hume. As always, Bush insisted (a) it wasn't torture because lawyers approved it and (b) the information tortured out of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed saved American lives:

when people study the history of this particular episode they'll find out we gained good information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in order to protect our country.

But how exactly are we supposed to "study the history"? Hume pressed Bush for more details:

Q Can you be more specific than that?

But Bush refused to be more specific or offer any insights into the history that we're supposed to study. Instead he dodged the question by insisting (a) it was approved by lawyers and (b) Congress was "briefed."

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I have said in speeches -- as a matter of fact, when this program was leaked to the press I actually gave a speech that said to the American people, yes, we're doing this. But I also emphasized we were doing it within the law.

Look, I understand why people can get carried away on this issue. But generally they don't know the facts. And by the way, one of the interesting things that did take place is before anything happened on this particular program that we did brief members of Congress. We had an obligation to share information with the legislative branch. 

In fact, the good information that was tortured out of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was freely available in an interview KSM gave to Al Jazeera correspondent Yosri Fouda in April 2002 before he was captured. And the rest of the information that was tortured out of KSM was bad information that wasted the time of everyone in the government who had to investigate it. As Peter Bergen writes,

It all sounds very frightening, except that there is no indication that these plots were ever more than talk. The one exception is the plan by Iyman Faris, an Ohio trucker who worked for KSM, who researched the feasibility of bringing down the Brooklyn Bridge with a pair of gas cutters in 2002, an enterprise akin to demolishing the Empire State Building with a firecracker. If that is all we could discover by waterboarding the most senior al-Qaeda member in our custody, it's thin stuff indeed.

It's no wonder Bush refused to provide any details of how torture saved American lives - even to FOX. That's because it didn't.

Here's the relevant portion of the interview: 

Q Talk to me about the presidency as you found it -- its powers, its prerogatives, and how you feel you're leaving it.

THE PRESIDENT: My presidency was defined by the attack on the country, and therefore used the powers inherent in the Constitution to defend this country.

Q Did you find them intact?

THE PRESIDENT: I found -- yes, I did find the presidential powers intact. I have at times used those powers in ways that people had not anticipated. For example, the idea of, within the law, being able to have our folks question known killers about their intention. Now, many of the decisions I made are being adjudicated. And of course I have lived by and future Presidents will live by the decisions of the Supreme Court. But as a wartime President -- what remained intact, by the way, was the Constitution, which we have honored.

Q It has been argued that what you sought to do is exactly expand the powers of the presidency, or in the eyes of some -- perhaps in the eyes of the Vice President -- to restore them. How do you see that?

THE PRESIDENT: I see the relationship between the presidency and the judiciary and the legislative branch as constantly changing throughout the history of the country. And the key thing that's important is that there still be checks and balances. And so however I interpreted the Constitution, I kept in mind what the Constitution said, the legality of what my decisions were; but I also fully understood the checks and balances inherent in our system.

Q Now, you've spoken of the tools that you believe you put in place and which your successor will now inherit. How worried are you -- if at all -- that those tools will be corroded, relinquished in the -- because some of them have been --

THE PRESIDENT: Slightly criticized. (Laughter.)

Q Well, to say the least.

THE PRESIDENT: I would hope that the team that is -- has the honor of serving the country will take a hard look at the realities of the world and the tools now in place to protect the United States from further attack. I would hope they would take a sober assessment -- and I believe they will.

Q And what will they find?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, they will find that with a considerable amount of care and concern for civil liberties, for example, that I have put in place procedures that will enable the professionals to better learn the intentions of al Qaeda, for example. They will realize, I think when they really study the issue carefully, that we have gone from an administration that was accused of not connecting dots to an administration that is connecting dots, you know, linking pieces of information to better protect the country, with the civil liberties of our citizens in mind.

Q Now, the enhanced interrogation techniques, as some call them -- torture, as others call them-- are being argued over to this hour. Some are saying you never get any good information by rough stuff, and others have said -- more than once -- that if we hadn't used these techniques we wouldn't have had vital information and attacks could have been or would have been carried out on this country. Your view of that.

THE PRESIDENT: My view is that the techniques were necessary and are necessary to be used on a rare occasion to get information necessary to protect the American people. One such person who gave us information was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He was the mastermind of the September the 11th, 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on our soil.

And I'm in the Oval Office and I am told that we have captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the professionals believe he has information necessary to secure the country. So I ask what tools are available for us to find information from him, and they gave me a list of tools. And I said, are these tools deemed to be legal. And so we got legal opinions before any decision was made. And I think when people study the history of this particular episode they'll find out we gained good information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in order to protect our country.

Q Well, how good and how important? And what's the --

THE PRESIDENT: We believe that the information we gained helped save lives on American soil.

Q Can you be more specific than that?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I have said in speeches -- as a matter of fact, when this program was leaked to the press I actually gave a speech that said to the American people, yes, we're doing this. But I also emphasized we were doing it within the law.

Look, I understand why people can get carried away on this issue. But generally they don't know the facts. And by the way, one of the interesting things that did take place is before anything happened on this particular program that we did brief members of Congress. We had an obligation to share information with the legislative branch. And all I can tell the American people is we better have tools in place that are legal and that can help us protect the American people from an enemy that still exists.

My concern is -- not for President-Elect Obama, because I'm confident that he understands the nature of the world and understands the need to protect America. But I am concerned that America, at some point in time, lets down her guard. And if we ever do that, the country will become highly vulnerable.

Q Well, how badly would it hurt, in your view, if these enhanced interrogation techniques -- that some call torture -- were abandoned and made -- and made -- were not used?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, well, obviously I feel like it would be a problem because these are tools that we have in place. I do want to -- you know, I firmly reject the word "torture."

Q I understand that.

THE PRESIDENT: Everything this administration did was -- had a legal basis to it, otherwise we would not have done it.

Secondly, everything we did was in consultation with professionals in our government who understand, you know, how to use techniques in a way that gets information with, you know, within the law, necessary to protect the American people.

And I just can't imagine what it would be like to be President without these tools available, and we captured a known killer who might have had information about the next attack on America.

See, what some don't understand, evidently, is that we're at war, and it's a different kind of war, where an enemy uses asymmetrical warfare, and they lie in wait and find a soft spot, ready to attack again. And they're willing to kill as many innocent people as they can to advance their agenda.