The White House declared the waterboarding interrogation technique to be perfectly legal, one day after the CIA director publicly admitted that the method had been used on three suspected terrorists. The technique does not count as torture, the officials said, adding that President Bush could also authorize the use of it if necessary.

Tony Fratto, spokesman for the White House, said: “The President will listen to the considered judgment of the professionals in the intelligence community and the judgment of the attorney general in terms of the legal consequences of employing a particular technique,” and if the President will consider an attack to be imminent, he might authorize it again.

The dispute will continue, as human right advocates considered it to be torture and to go against international human rights laws. The White House has been accused of trying to cover up for something they knew was wrong and that they simply refuse to admit that now. Currently the Senate has requested a further investigation on the matter in order to establish whether the laws against torture have been broken.

One question still remains though: if the technique is legal, as the White House says, what was the point of the continuous denial of using it, if at the end of the day it was justifiable? Up until this point, the White House avoided such discussions, saying that they would only be in the detriment of the United States.

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden publicly testified early this week that the agency had used the waterboarding technique in 2002 and 2003, to obtain information from al Qaeda members. According to him, only three suspects were subjected to this method, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who proclaimed himself the mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

The waterboarding technique basically simulates the sensation of drowning, and implies covering the face of the prisoner with a piece of cloth and pouring water down his throat. The use of this method has been highly contested by human rights advocates, but so far the CIA has had full permission from the White House to use it. The CIA is the only agency in the Unites States allowed to use more harsh methods on prisoners during interrogations.