US: President Geroge Bush has denied that the United States tortures prisoners, amid claims that the CIA detains terrorist suspects in secret jails in eastern Europe.
Speaking in Panama at the end of a week-long tour of Latin America, Mr Bush defended his administration's methods in combating terrorism.
"We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do to that effort, to that end, in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture," he said.
Mr Bush defended a White House campaign to persuade Congress to exempt CIA personnel from a Bill that would forbid any US government employee from using cruel and inhuman treatment on prisoners anywhere in the world.
"We're working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it possible - more possible to do our job.
"There's an enemy that lurks and plots and plans, and wants to hurt America again. And so, you bet, we'll aggressively pursue them.
"But we will do so under the law. And that's why you're seeing members of my administration go and brief the Congress . . . And I'm confident that when people see the facts, that they'll recognize that we've - they've got more work to do, and that we must protect ourselves in a way that is lawful," he said.
The president's remarks came as the US Supreme Court agreed to consider a legal challenge to the administration's use of military tribunals to try foreign terrorism suspects.
Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemenese inmate at Guantanamo Bay who is alleged to have been Osama bin Laden's bodyguard and driver, contends that Mr Bush went beyond his authority in setting up the tribunals and that the procedures would violate the Geneva Convention.
The tribunals allow the accused to be excluded from parts of the proceeding, allow witness statements in place of sworn testimony, and direct appeals to either Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or the president.
Mr Hamdan's lawyer, Neal Katyal, told the court that the tribunals represented "a contrived system subject to change at the whim of the president".
"With constantly shifting terms and conditions, the commissions resemble an automobile dealership instead of a legal tribunal dispensing American justice and protecting human dignity," Prof Katyal said in a written submission.
Mr Hamdan, who was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001, is charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, murder and terrorism.
He denies conspiring to engage in acts of terrorism and insists he was never a member of al-Qaeda.