Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

From the New York Times:

The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.

The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.

In other words: After the U.S. turned al-Libi over to Egypt for torture, al-Libi figured out what his tormentors wanted to hear and then lied to them in order to stop being tortured. This is why every military and intelligence expert worth his or her salt say that torture doesn't work.

Of course the Bushites don't care about getting good intel, they just want to manufacture sources who will parrot their propaganda and reinforce their case; if that means sending innocent people to other countries that will perform torture on the Bush Administration's behalf, they're okay with that.