Talk Radio News Service
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is claiming the information that tipped the U.S. off to terrorist leader Osama bin Laden’s location was not collected through the controversial enhanced interrogation technique known as waterboarding.
“It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance,” Rumsfeld said during an interview with the conservative magazine Newsmax. “But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding.”
Bin Laden’s location was reportedly revealed by tracking the terrorist leader’s top courier, whose identity was revealed by al Qaeda official Khald Sheik Mohammed. Rumsfeld’s statement counters speculation from a number of conservative commentators and lawmakers that Mohammed may have revealed the identity following the enhanced interrogation technique, a development that many claimed would justify the use of the controversial method.
Rumsfeld joins a cast of others who have shed doubt on the role waterboarding may have played in the investigation. When asked during an interview on MSNBC Tuesday morning if waterboarding directly lead to bin Laden, Obama’s top counterterrorism advisor John Brennan responded “not to my knowledge.” In addition, an Associated Press story that cites former CIA officials attributes the bin Laden information to standard interrogation perfrormed months after Mohammed was subjected to the technique.
Mohammed, a Guantanamo Bay detainee, was reportedly waterboarded 183 times.
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