I'm a realist, which means I can easily live with a McCain presidency. For sure, the man has plenty of personal and ideological faults, but bottom line, he's served the people well. That's why Arizonans have elected and re-elected him for over 25 years. If the White House is McCain's next work address, I suspect the American people will be just as happy -- and irritated -- with him as his Arizona constituents have been since 1982.

There is one McCain position, however, that does scare me. If he becomes president, McCain has promised to outlaw U.S. use of waterboarding, and, presumably, some other "enhanced interrogation techniques."

This isn't an empty promise. McCain would cite his personal history as a Vietnam POW and torture victim to claim the emotional high ground and short-circuit rational debate on the role and results of interrogation in the continuing war on terror.

McCain is right when he claims torture doesn't work. But waterboarding and other enhanced techniques aren't torture, and they do work.

It was waterboarding that flipped al-Qaida leader Abu Zubaydah. According to numerous news reports, he gave information that led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and Bali nightclub bombings.

I believe the reason those interrogations and others using enhanced techniques were successful is because they were conducted by seasoned intelligence officers, not young military officers. That's a significant distinction McCain avoids. He and other proponents of a ban insist on framing the issue strictly in military terms. They trumpet the U.S. Army's elimination of these techniques from its field manual. Other government agencies, McCain argues, should follow the Army's lead.

That argument would have merit if the war on terror were strictly a military conflict. It's not. Army officers and their soldiers aren't likely to encounter high-ranking al-Qaida operatives on the battlefield. They're more likely to engage hundreds of foot soldiers whose intelligence value probably expired well before their capture.

Satellite imaging and other defense technology has rendered useless much of the information gleaned on the battlefield. For most soldiers, enhanced interrogation techniques are more trouble than they're worth, which is why the Army was smart in getting them out of the espionage business.

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THE WAR ON TERROR IS ACTUALLY AN INTELLIGENCE BATTLE. Islamic terrorists don't use military might. The 9/11 force that inflicted one of the most deadly attacks on American soil numbered only 19 men. Abrams tanks or F-18 Hornets were useless against the 9/11 terrorists because we didn't know who they were, couldn't detect their intentions or measure their conviction. Only intelligence and the understanding of how to apply it could have stopped them.

McCain's pledge to limit how that information can lawfully be gathered is not only self-destructive but a disservice to the people in the intelligence services now charged with connecting the dots. It assumes they lack the expertise to determine when an enhanced technique is appropriate.

That's simply not the case. In a speech before the Council of Foreign Relations in September, CIA Director Michael H. Hayden revealed that advanced psychological techniques, much like those McCain favors, are the preferred and most effective interrogation methods deployed. He said many an operative capitulated when an experienced CIA interrogator -- average age 43 -- was able to catch a detainee in a lie or reveal in detail information the prisoner thought only he knew.

But there were other instances, such as the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, where these verbal techniques didn't work. But waterboarding, which leaves no lasting physical harm, did.

If President McCain takes waterboarding and other intelligence gathering methods off the table to soothe the sensibilities of the political elite, he might as well go ahead and ground jet fighters because their emissions contribute to global warming. It makes just as much sense.

If McCain is truly serious about prevailing in the war on terror, he'll make available every legal weapon and tool to win it.