Sick bastards

Reaffirming what Ron Suskind already told us, they didn't want information -- they wanted to get off on sadism:

The first use of waterboarding and other rough treatment against a prisoner from Al Qaeda was ordered by senior Central Intelligence Agency officials despite the belief of interrogators that the prisoner had already told them all he knew, according to former intelligence officials and a footnote in a newly released legal memorandum.

All the valuable information they got out of him, and it was far less valuable than claimed, occurred through traditional interrogation techniques early on:

Abu Zubaydah had provided much valuable information under less severe treatment, and the harsher handling produced no breakthroughs, according to one former intelligence official with direct knowledge of the case. Instead, watching his torment caused great distress to his captors, the official said.

You can literally detect Dick Cheney masturbating his way through the orders to torture the bastard...oh, I'm sorry, Cheney was just "engaged in enhanced arousal techniques".

Fuckers.