It looks like the real purpose of the torture licensed by the former administration may have been to generate propoganda statements linking Saddam Hussein/Iraq etc. to Al Queida - as opposed to gaining tactical inofmation:
http://ping.fm/NpA0S

The american public deserves to have this investigated.

As I noted on my blog last week, history (and information theory) have shown torture to be basically unreliable in generating tactical information.

But is effective in corecing people into saying what you *want* them to say.