"And I’d like to interject a note of balance here. There are times
when we all get in high dudgeon. We ought to be reasonable about this.
I think there are probably very few people in this room or in America
who would say that torture should never, ever be used, particularly if
thousands of lives are at stake.

Take the hypothetical: If we knew that there was a nuclear bomb hidden
in an American city and we believed that some kind of torture, fairly
severe maybe, would give us a chance of finding that bomb before it
went off, my guess is most Americans and most senators, maybe all,
would say, Do what you have to do.

So it’s easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can
never be used. But when you’re in the foxhole, it’s a very different
deal."

Senator Chuck Schumer, June 8, 2004