Torture and War

Today an additional facet of the reason we went to war in Iraq came out. Apparently, we did have a source saying that Iraq and Al Qaeda were linked. However, that was a suspect, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who was rendered to Egypt and talked about the Iraq-Al Qaeda link after being tortured. While it doesn't mark the first time torture produced wrong intelligence, it does pose a few questions. First, did al-Libi come up with the Iraq-Al Qaeda link, or were his interregators tasked to ask him about it? Second, why are we still using rendition and torture after the intelligence provided under duress turned out to be totally wrong and led (or helped the President lead) to a costly, illegal war? Beyond the rationale for the war in Iraq, torture will be a counter-effective strategy in preventing terrorist attacks. If a suspect is caught and tortured to tell where the 'ticking bomb' is (as the hypothetical is often phrased), it is likely that he will provide false information, anything really, to get the torture to stop. This poses a very real threat that, even if we get the right person and can use any techniques we want, the information will be faulty and we'll spend considerable resources based on a falsehood and remain vulnerable to a real threat.