Panel to Drill Panetta, Petraeus on Waterboarding

Key Senate Republicans plan to ask Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta and Gen. David Petraeus, nominees to take over as defense secretary and the top job at CIA, respectively, about President Barack Obama’s policies on enhanced interrogation techniques and an ongoing investigation of CIA operatives during confirmation hearings.

The inquiries come on the heels of the successful mission to find terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said there was a concern among Republicans that the country may have discontinued interrogation methods that provided critical intelligence that led up to the killing of bin Laden.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who sits on the Senate Armed Services committee, also indicated through a spokesman that he planned to inquire about enhanced interrogation techniques and the ongoing investigation of CIA operatives by the Justice Department.

“The information that eventually led us to this compound was the direct result of enhanced interrogations; one can conclude if we had not used enhanced interrogations, we would not have come to yesterday’s action,” Sen. Richard Burr, R-S.C., said the day after bin Laden’s killing.