As ABC News notes:
The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA's so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history.
"We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day," said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden.
But as ABC notes in the next paragraph:
Mohammed did not reveal the names while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He identified them many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic.
Reuters points out:
But the possibility that detainees who at some point were subjected to physical coercion later gave up information leading to bin Laden's discovery is sparking discussion among intelligence experts as to whether he could have been found without them.
"It will reignite a debate that hasn't gone away about the morality and ethicacy of certain techniques," said Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
In reality, top interrogation experts (both conservative and liberal) agree that torture is an ineffective interrogation method which leads to false, unusable information:
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