Rice: If President OK’s it, it can’t be torture

If the President authorizes a method of interrogation, it must not be torture, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says.

Speaking to students at Stanford University, Rice was asked by a student whether waterboarding was torture.

“The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against Torture,” Rice said. She added: “By definition, if it was authorized by the President, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.”

The statement is eerily similar to a claim Richard Nixon made in a 1977 interview with David Frost.

“It the President does it, that means it’s not illegal,” Nixon said.

Here’s the video of Rice’s encounter. The remarks above begin at 5:30, but the whole video is worth a watch, since Rice mixes it up several times with students.