WASHINGTON — President Obama last night bluntly disputed Herman Cain and other GOP presidential hopefuls who say waterboarding is not torture.
“Let me just say this: They’re wrong,” Obama told a press conference at the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hawaii.
During a GOP presidential debate last week, Cain said he didn’t think waterboarding was torture, and Michele Bachmann called it “very effective.”
But Obama, who has banned waterboarding, said. “It’s contrary to our ideals. That’s not who we are. That’s not how we operate.”
Still, information obtained by interrogators while waterboarding 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed has been credited with leading to the killing of Osama bin Laden.