La Perino, of course, can’t confirm any of them, because if the government confirms what is already known then the terrorists will gain a terrible advantage,* and none of us would like to be responsible for the consequences of that. However, it seems to be widely accepted that all three of the following statements are true:
1) Waterboarding was approved by Bush in 2002.
2) Waterboarding was used by the CIA against at least 3 al Qaeda detainees: Abu Zubaydah, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
3) Waterboarding is torture. (That’s why we prosecuted the Japanese interrogation enhancement specialists who practiced it during World War II as war criminals. That’s why “Hayden prohibited waterboarding in 2006. The U.S. military outlawed it the same year.”)

Therefore we do, too, torture. Or did, at the very least.

And if George Bush wants to insist that “this government does not torture people”, shouldn’t he make it clear to the American people which of those three statements is not true?

* There are some alternative hypotheses, but we won’t sabotage national security by mentioning what they are.