Regarding the use of torture for obtaining information from suspected terrorists, in a White House announcement on September 6, 2006, President Bush “said such [enhanced interrogation] tactics had led to the capture of top al-Qaeda operatives and had thwarted a number of planned attacks, including plots to strike U.S. Marines in Djibouti, fly planes into office towers in London, and detonate a radioactive ‘dirty’ bomb in America. ‘Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that al-Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland. By giving us information about terrorist plans we could not get anywhere else, this program has saved innocent lives.’ ”
– David Rose, “Tortured Reasoning,” Vanity Fair, Dec. 16, 2008