People here are
VERY ILL INFORMED about interrogation technique
Suggest member to read this article I wrote several months back
True art of Interrogation
Back on topic. Did we used torture? Yes, we do, I am not going to deflect and tell you "So What, China used it too" or something like that, but in the game of Intel, it's very hard to Not torture people and get the information you need. Not because torture itself usually generate useful intel. Most of the time it was quite the opposite, most people will simply tell you shit just that you stop torturing them.
Now, why torture is useful in interrogation? It's for a simple reason, "So, they know you are going to do it" I can point a knife at your throat and make it look like I am going to cut you, but fact is, the person knows that I lost the moment I cut him. Cos he will be dead and you can't extract info from dead man.
So what do you do? You get his family and tell him you are sending his family to Abu Ghraib
Fact is, whether or not you are sending his family in is another matter. Point is he believe you are going to so it, and he knows what happened to Abu Ghraib. So he knows his family is going to hell on earth.
In the intel business, Myth is more powerful than facts, or threats. cos you don't know what might happen. That's the usefulness of Abu Gharib. To give you a point. Its much like a bomb threats, it works best if you dont know when, where and how the bomb is going to detonate, what is the threat when the bomb has already gone off?
This is how Intelligence IN THIS WORLD operate, or you really believe anyone would be dumb enough to take picture of a torture session and circulate it on the internet or main stream media?
i myself got a few good intel this way back when i was in afghanistan, without even touching the subject...