Rice 'Approved Torture Methods'

Condoleezza Rice, the former US secretary of state, approved the use of torture methods such as waterboarding as early as 2002, a new report says.

A US senate intelligence committee report said on Wednesday that Rice, then national security adviser, verbally gave the green light to the CIA in July 2002 to use waterboarding on Abu Zubaydah, an al-Qaeda suspect held in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

A few days later on August 1, 2002, the then US justice department approved the use of waterboarding in a secret memo, the report said.

Abu Zubaydah underwent waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002, according to memos from the administration of George Bush released earlier this week.

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No Charges Over CIA Waterboarding

Barack Obama has said that intelligence officials who used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques on so-called terrorism suspects will not be prosecuted for their actions.

"It is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the department of justice that they will not be subject to prosecution," he said in Thursday's statement.

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