Tom Toles on Waterboarding Iraq–al Qaida “Links”

Tom Toles just got it:



False confessions flow naturally from torture. I think Tom just summed it up perfectly. It's a feature.

The “Tortuous” Search for Iraq-al Qaida Links

Jonathan S. Landay of McClatchy Newspapers drops a bomb:

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.

So detainees were tortured while trying to make them speak of a non-existing issue. So much for the ticking time bomb scenario. This gives whole new meaning to the original source for the title phrase of this blog. “Go massive” indeed.