WORLD> America
Obama says waterboarding was torture
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-04-30 19:47

Obama told reporters he has read the documents Cheney and others are referring to but said they are classified and declined to discuss their details. In a White House exchange with House Republican leader John Boehner last week, Obama said the record was equivocal.

The news conference lasted an hour and covered topics ranging from the outbreak of swine flu -- which Obama referred to as the H1N1 virus, evidently in deference to US pork producers -- to abortion and the recent flare-up in violence in Iraq.

Alongside wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the situation in Pakistan has grown more ominous in recent days as a resurgent Taliban shows signs of strength.

Obama said he was "gravely concerned," not about an immediate takeover of the country by the Taliban but because he said the Pakistani government seems unable to deliver basic services and thus gain the kind of public loyalty necessary to survive against challenges over the long term.

The president also gave his strongest public admission yet that the overhaul of the current immigration system that he once promised to tackle in his first 100 days will not happen in 2009. He focused instead on the "key administrative steps" he has directed officials to take this year that he said would demonstrate competence to opponents in the contentious debate.

Obama defended his administration's continuation of Bush's policy that the president has inherent and unchecked power to shield national security information from disclosure -- the so-called "state secrets" doctrine. Obama said that court filings came too quickly in his presidency to go in a new direction but that his advisers are already working on ways to have the doctrine modified, even while he said certain cases will require its use.