It's official: torture is Bush policy.

Well, we've known for a while that the Bush administration considers torture to be a legitimate thing to do. But so far, no administrations official has come out and said that on the record.

Well, that has changed. Details below the fold.

In this BBC article, Tom Ridge declares that torture won't be ruled out:

Speaking to the BBC, Tom Ridge said the US did not condone the use of torture to extract information from terrorists.

But he said that "under an extreme set of circumstances" such as the threat of a nuclear attack, "it could happen".

In other words, he does condone it. After all, who defines "an extreme set of circumstances"?

Ridge also stated:

he said it was "human nature" that torture might be employed in certain exceptional cases when time was very limited.

Ok, then. So not controlling our violent and sadistic impulses is government policy now. After all, it's only human.

Update [2005-1-14 17:2:28 by Frank]: Also read SusanHu's excellent diary on torture.