Mixed Reviews for Enhanced Interrogation Techniques Following Bin Laden News
U.S. voters think that Enhanced Interrogation Techniques like waterboarding probably yielded some valuable information but are unsure whether they were needed to find Osama bin Laden.
Sixty-four percent (64%) say it’s at least somewhat likely that Enhanced Interrogation Techniques used at the Guantanamo Bay Prison Camps helped secure valuable information. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 23% disagree and say it’s unlikely to have helped. Twelve percent (12%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
But voters are far more divided as to whether it would have been possible to find Osama bin Laden without information gathered from such approaches. Thirty-six percent (36%) say it would have been possible to find bin Laden without the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, 29% disagree and say it would not, while 35% are not sure.
Going forward, 50% believe such techniques should be used on suspected terrorists, 30% disagree, and 21% are not sure.
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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on May 13-14, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
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