Santorum (left) says McCain 'doesn't understand how enhanced interrogation works.' | AP Photos Santorum: McCain wrong on torture

Rick Santorum said Tuesday that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, "doesn't understand how enhanced interrogation works."

Speaking on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, Santorum, the presidential hopeful and former Pennsylvania senator, says McCain is misguided in his stance against the enhanced interrogation techniques sanctioned during the Bush administration but discontinued by Obama's White House, which has labeled them torture.


“Everything I’ve read shows that we would not have gotten this information as to who this man was if it had not been gotten information from people who were subject to enhanced interrogation,” Santorum said, referring to the courier that led Americans to Osama bin Laden. “And so this idea that we didn’t ask that question while Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was being waterboarded, he doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works. I mean, you break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become cooperative.”

With the torture debate reignited by bin Laden's death, McCain has argued that enhanced interrogation did not lead the United States to the terror leader, and that his death should not be used to justify past use of techniques like waterboarding. Last week, McCain took to the Washington Post’s op-ed page, saying that techniques like waterboarding have no place in American interrogation policies.

In a statement to POLITICO after publication of this article, Santorum emphasized said his comments shouldn't be taken as an insult to McCain's service.

“I disagree with Senator McCain’s view that the enhanced interrogation techniques used on a select few high-value terrorist detainees were unsuccessful nor do I believe they amounted to torture," he said. "For anyone to infer my disagreement with Senator McCain’s policy position lessens my respect for his service to our country and all he had to endure is outrageous and unfortunate.”