The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The first secretary of the Homeland Security Department says waterboarding is torture.

"There's just no doubt in my mind -- under any set of rules -- waterboarding is torture," Tom Ridge said Friday in an interview with the Associated Press. Ridge had offered the same opinion earlier in the day to members of the American Bar Association at a homeland security conference.

"One of America's greatest strengths is the soft power of our value system and how we treat prisoners of war, and we don't torture," Ridge said in the interview. Ridge was secretary of the Homeland Security Department between 2003 and 2005. "And I believe, unlike others in the administration, that waterboarding was, is -- and will always be -- torture. That's a simple statement."

Say what you will about the man and his tenure as Homeland Security's secretary, it takes guts to come out and make a stance such as this. And he also was willing to point out the so called terrorists alerts under his tenure were politically motivated to influence the election in 2004. That is what I call integrity. He may have come late to it, but he came to it none the less.