AUDIO: Santorum still has disagreement with McCain over waterboarding

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is standing by his assertion that the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee doesn’t understand the value of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques used to elicit information from captured enemies of the country. Arizona Senator John McCain was held captive in North Vietnam for five-and-a-half years and endured brutal treatment as a prisoner of war. McCain has repeatedly called on both the Bush and Obama Administrations to refrain from so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” like waterboarding.  Santorum maintains information gleaned during the “enhanced interrogation” of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed led to the discovery of Osama bin Laden.

Santorum bristled today during a news conference in West Des Moines when a reporter asked about the controversy.

AUDIO: 30 sec

Reporter: “John McCain recently said you made a mistake when you said you didn’t understand how torture works. Do you regret making those statements?

Santorum: “With all due respect, if you’re going to quote me, please quote me.  Don’t paraphrase and then put some sort of twist on what I said.  I didn’t say that and I think you should go back and you should read what I said and you should read the article on how I said it. What I said was that we have a very different opinion on how the enhanced interrogation program works and I’ve been very clear about that and we still have that disagreement.”