Cruz won last week?s Republican Iowa caucuses and subsequently called a fraud by frontrunner Donald Trump. “I would bring back waterboarding, and I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding”, he said.
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Donald Trump doubled down on his view of waterboarding, announcing from tonight’s New Hampshire debate stage that he wants that type of enhanced interrogation as part of his anti-terror tool kit – and more.
“I would bring back waterboarding”, Trump told Saturday night’s debate audience in Manchester, N.H. They’re chopping heads off, they laugh at us when they hear we’re not going to approve waterboarding and then they’ll have a James Foley and others where they cut off their heads.
Cruz said that torture is “excruciating pain” which results in loss of organs and systems, so waterboarding is not regarded as torture under that definition.
“In the Middle East, we have people chopping the heads off Christians, not since medieval times have people seen what’s going on”, he said.
Trump intervened after rival Ted Cruz hesitated after being questioned about “enhanced interrogation techniques”.
American interrogators used the tactic to try to garner more information from captives, but critics argued the method never actually yielded any intelligence information.
Trump justified the use of waterboarding and other unnamed advanced interrogation techniques because terror groups use greater measures to inflict fear and harm. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is no dove when it comes to foreign policy, took an uncharacteristic pause when asked about the tactic before saying that he wouldn’t bring it back for widespread use. It’s under siege from a people, from – we’re like living in medieval times.
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Waterboarding is just “enhanced interrogation, it is vigorous interrogation, but it does not meet the generally recognized definition of torture”, he explained.
