In the case of waterboarding, which was used against a grand total of three people — all of them very senior al-Qaeda leaders with extensive knowledge of operations intended to kill large numbers of people — Bush is understandably unrepentant. Even if it hadn't been a successful technique, he was under a moral obligation to protect Americans, but thankfully it was highly successful. Anyhow, if waterboarding was torture along the lines of thumbscrews or the rack — as the human rights industry still tries to make out — how is it that one detainee was able to endure it 180 times? It has to be one thing or the other — either a terrible, vicious torture, or something that can be endured 180 times: it cannot be both.
As for the ludicrous conspiracy theory that the Bush administration — and by extension, the Blair government too — knew that there were no WMDs in Iraq before the invasion, Bush poses the succinct question: "If I wanted to mislead the country into war, why would I pick an allegation that was certain to be disproved publicly shortly after we invaded the country?" At least a dozen postwar conflicts have cost more lives than Iraq. It is a symptom of Acute Bush Derangement Syndrome, a psychological disorder commonly found in academia and left-wing literary journals, to obsess about the outbreak of this one in the way that people still do. One hopes the present Iraq Inquiry will finally lay these conspiracy theories to rest.
History's perspective is indeed broader than the overwhelmingly negative one that the 24/7 news cycle has so far allowed Bush. It will rate him decades from now as a very good president, who protected his people after 9/11, initiated two wars that eventually ended in victory — unless his successor cuts and runs in Afghanistan — and perhaps also began the process by which the Middle East started to drag its institutions out of the 17th century. At the very least, Bush destroyed one of the world's most evil tyrants, drove a mass murderer into a cave for the rest of his life, allowed millions of Afghan girls to receive an education, launched a $15 billion programme to combat HIV/Aids in Africa and behaved in a personally honourable and dignified way in the Oval Office, in stark contrast to his predecessor. Decision Points is the first step along a long road to complete rehabilitation. I just hope the end of that road is reached in Bush's own lifetime.
