“Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve, which campaigns for better treatment of prisoners, said: ‘As ever, the former President [Bush] alludes to secret, unverifiable achievements by his Administration thanks to torture. What we know for sure is that the US tortured [al Qaeda commander] Ibn Sheikh al-Libi into ‘revealing’ a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. This information was false, and yet provided the basis for the war on Iraq and the endless bloodshed that followed. ‘By authorising torture, President Bush made the world an infinitely more dangerous place. The practice spread like a virus, from the CIA to Abu Ghraib, destroying international goodwill towards the US and stoking extremism everywhere. President Bush provided al-Qaeda with its greatest recruiting sergeant.’ ”
– Ben Macintyre, “Bush: Waterboarding Saved London from Attacks,” The Times of London, Nov. 9, 2010