Tortured evidence

So why did the Bush administration authorise -- and try to find legal cover for -- the use of techniques on detainees that have been regarded as torture when practised anywhere else in the world? Here's one answer:

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam's regime...

As several people have remarked recently, historically torture has been used not to elicit information, but to elicit false confessions. It seems the Bushies were no different.

There's an old joke that I mentioned before about the Delhi Police going to capture a lion. But the punchline seems to apply perfectly to the CIA under the Bushies.