I just finished reading the book "A Question of Torture" and am amazed at the history of the CIA using and testing torture over the past 50 years. What comes from it is that it's increadibly effective at breaking people and making them "regress" into previous states of mental development. Something as simple as sensory deprivation and isolation can induce psychosis in people after only a day or two. People can suffer from debillitating mental illness after being placed in a situation where they're bombarded with music at all hours, they're fed meals irregularly and are treated as less-than-human.

However, the results of this treatment isn't actionable intelligence. The prisoner will say anything, including lying, to get out of the situation. What they say can't be trusted and intelligence officials know that torture is a FAILURE of an intelligence operation, not an effective tool.

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After watching Frontline's "Bush's War" I got queezy over the fact that we didn't hear from any Iraqis about what they though of the war. Charlie Rose got an earfull though: