McCain to Trump: We are not bringing back waterboarding

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) — A leading Republican voice on national security matters says he doesn’t care what President-elect Donald Trump says, the United States will not reinstate waterboarding.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Saturday at the Halifax International Security Forum that any attempt to bring back harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, which simulates drowning, would quickly be challenged in court.

McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, says extreme interrogation techniques are banned under US law and the Geneva Conventions.

During the campaign, Trump said he would push to change laws that prohibit waterboarding used against suspected terrorists during the George W. Bush administration.

But McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, says waterboarding doesn’t work and makes it hard for the US to claim moral superiority.

Trump repeatedly advocated enhanced interrogation techniques for foreign prisoners, saying in February he would “absolutely” allow waterboarding.

“But we should go much stronger than waterboarding,” he said during a campaign stop in South Carolina. “That’s the way I feel. They’re chopping off heads. Believe me, we should go much stronger because our country’s in trouble, we’re in danger. We have people that want to do really bad things.”

“Waterboarding is fine, but it’s not nearly tough enough,” he added.

Waterboarding was practiced until late in the Bush administration but was disavowed by President Barack Obama. A 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report concluded that harsh interrogation techniques failed to produce information the CIA couldn’t have obtained elsewhere or didn’t already have.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.