Challenging Cheney

I don't believe the question of whether America's torture regime is legitimate rests on the question of its effectiveness in gathering intelligence.  Nevertheless, it is intelligible for someone to make that question the decisive question to ask and answer.  

Knowing this, and with his usual bravado, Cheney announced that he formally requested the release of classified memos which, he claims, conclusively demonstrate the effectiveness of torture in providing actionable intelligence.  In a NY Times Op-Ed, and in an apparent response to Cheney's bravado, Ali Soufan, the FBI agent who interrogated Abu Zubaydah, claims that valuable intelligence gathered from this interrogation arrived via traditional, i.e. non torturous, methods.  Additionally, he makes the following claims,

there was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics...Defenders of these [torturous--mtn] techniques have claimed that they got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a top aide to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Mr. Padilla. This is false. The information that led to Mr. Shibh’s capture came primarily from a different terrorist operative who was interviewed using traditional methods. As for Mr. Padilla, the dates just don’t add up: the harsh techniques were approved in the memo of August 2002, Mr. Padilla had been arrested that May.

 If true, this would put the final nail in the coffin of the torture regime.  It yielded literally nothing of value, and we have come to the end of intelligible rationales for its existence.  And what is left but to conclude with Paul Krugman, if one hadn't already, that the authors of this regime are monsters.