WASHINGTON, Oct 27: The White House struggled to damp down a new row over torture on Friday, after Vice President Dick Cheney said dunking detained terror suspects in water was a ‘no brainer’.

The comments outraged human rights activists, but the White House denied they were an endorsement of the controversial ‘water boarding’ technique of simulated drowning.

The technique ostensibly falls afoul of a new US law on interrogating terror suspects, passed after years of debate about how the United States deals with detainees such as alleged Sept 11 attack mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Mr Cheney was asked in an interview with conservative radio host Scott Hennen on Tuesday whether he agreed ‘a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives’.

“It’s a no-brainer for me,” the vice president replied.

“But for a while there, I was criticized as being the vice president ‘for torture.’ We don’t torture. That’s not what we’re involved in.

“We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we’re party to and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that.”

The White House on Friday tried to evade controversy over Cheney’s remarks and rejected claims he had slipped up.

Spokesman Tony Snow said Mr Cheney had been asked a loosely worded question and had not regarded it as a reference to water boarding.

“I’m telling you what the vice president’s view is, which is it wasn’t about water boarding and he wasn’t talking about it. Period,” said Mr Snow.

Asked by a reporter what a “dunk in the water” was supposed to mean, Mr Snow replied: “A dunk in the water is a dunk in the water.”

When a journalist quipped, “So the detainees go swimming?” Snow replied: “I don’t know. We will have to find out,” adding that the administration does not talk publicly about interrogation techniques.

“The vice president of the United States is not going to be talking about water boarding — never would, never does, never will.”

Cheney’s comments stoked an immediate reaction from human rights groups.

“What’s really a no-brainer is that no United States official, much less a vice president, should champion torture,” said Larry Cox, Amnesty International USA’s executive director. Human Rights Watch also reacted angrily.

“If Iran or Syria detained an American, Cheney is saying that it would be perfectly fine for them to hold that American’s head under water until he nearly drowns, if that’s what they think they need to do to save Iranian or Syrian lives,” said Tom Malinowski, the group’s Washington advocacy director. —AFP