Rubio: Review Use of Waterboarding

The Tampa Tribune reports:

Saying that the U.S. government "can learn from a successful operation like you can learn from a mistake," Sen. Marco Rubio said it is time to revisit the issue of waterboarding — an interrogation technique practiced during the George W. Bush administration and since banned.

Florida's Republican senator, speaking by telephone Thursday, wasn't endorsing the technique, but he did say the success of the operation that killed Osama bin Laden provides a good opportunity to question how the intelligence was derived that made it happen.

"We need to find out how this information was gathered," Rubio said. He was referring to whether waterboarding — or simulated drowning — and other "enhanced interrogation" techniques used during the Bush administration helped the CIA learn about the courier who led to bin Laden's hide-out in Pakistan.

"Again, this is not for the purposes of saying we were right and you were wrong; it's for understanding what works and what doesn't," he said.

Rubio's comments on waterboarding came during a broad discussion about what effect, if any, the death of bin Laden will have on the missions of Tampa-based U.S. Special Operations Command and U.S. Central Command.

Although bin Laden's death is a "confidence builder in terms of the war on terror," it won't change the missions of Socom and Centcom, Rubio said.