How Should a Christian Leader Have Responded to Lauer?

The video excerpt of Matt Lauer's interview with President Bush (posted by Michael P. below) is really strange.  The President's position, as far as I can tell, is that whatever our interrogators have done in secret prisons to extract information is, seemingly by definition: 1) legal; 2) not torture; and 3) necessary to protect the American people.  I'm a bit suspicious that the President's firm conviction in assertion #3 is the driving force of his confidence in assertions #1 and #2.  I share Andrew Sullivan's reaction to the interview:

It seems indisuptable to me that a) Bush has authorized "water-boarding"; b) he told his lawyers to come up with a formulation declaring this was legal (they did, finding Serbian precedents); c) his public strategy is to use euphemisms and make the ludicrous argument that he cannot discuss "specifics" because it could tip off the enemy. Does he really think that al Qaeda doesn't know KSM was waterboarded? It was in the New York Times, confirmed by his own aides. Lauer made a good start. Now we need a journalist to call the president on this guff and get him to answer simply whether he believes "water-boarding" is torture or not. A simple question in the abstract. And very simple for a Christian to answer.

For what it's worth, here is my own attempt to formulate a Christian perspective on torture.

Rob