Consider this exchange from George Bush's news conference today --
Q Thank you, sir. A two-part question. The New Yorker reports that the Red Cross has found the interrogation program in the CIA detention facilities use interrogation techniques that were tantamount to torture. I'm wondering if you have read that report and what your reaction to it is? [rest of question]
THE PRESIDENT: [...] Your other question, sir?
Q Red Cross report?
THE PRESIDENT: I haven't seen it. We don't torture.
Thus he says both that he didn't read the report describing the torture, but claims that there's no torture. Thus proving that his claim "We don't torture" is not an empirical statement, but a matter of definition: torture is defined as something that America doesn't do. The denials are thus, as they always have been, meaningless.
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