Bin Laden's death and Waterboarding

In the days since Osama bin Laden was sent to visit his 72 virgins, there has been a totally ridiculous debate in the media about whether or not enhanced interrogation techniques were the reason for getting bin Laden. Every time I turn on one of the so-called "news" shows on cable television, i come across another political "analyst" explaining why waterboarding was or was not responsible. Most of the discussions are so far from accurate that they border on fantasy.

First of all, one needs to understand that the enhanced interrogation techniques including waterboarding were not used to get nuggets of information from the terrorists. That means that all of the debates about whether or not the information gained from waterboarding led to bin Laden's death is just so much hot air. Let me explain. According to those who know, enhanced interrogation techniques are used to get a detainee to cooperate in questioning, not to actually get information. The questions that are asked during these sessions are ones to which the CIA or other agency already knows the answers. The agency uses the answers to guage if the detainee is telling the truth, not to get new information. Only once the terrorist is cooperating do the questions turn to new information. Waterboarding led KSM and others to cooperation. The information that led to bin Laden came after that cooperation was established.

We do know that the current and previous two directors of the CIA have all stated that enhanced interrogation techniques played an important part in getting the information that led to bin Laden. These folks -- who know more than anyone else on the subject -- provide the answer that political analysts bleating their talking points on cable news are ignoring. Absent the waterboarding and other EITs, it is much less likely that bin Laden would have been killed.