The Bush administration has argued publicly that it got tough on detainees to prevent another al-Qaida attack. The Senate report describes another possible motive, and a sobering example of how torture can produce bad intelligence.

"While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not being successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq," Army psychiatrist Maj. Paul Burney is quoted in the Senate report as saying about Guantánamo. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish this link ... there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."

Download the entire Senate Armed Services Committee report here.

Read about how the Bush administration may have pressured interrogators to use torture to extract information linking al-Qaida to Saddam Hussein here.

Read about Donald Rumsfeld's role in promoting harsh interrogation techniques here.

I also clipped it from Salon.com. Thanks for keeping this up.

Uh, good, glad they were thinking ahead.

Yeah, sure because when you're going to break the law it sure helps to plan ahead.

Every minute Bush was in the White House was torture.

Not to mention the people that died because of him.

I'm with Jorjor. I'm glad the info is finally coming out. Helps keep my thoughts in perspective. Thanks for the links.