From Dan's post:

... and it looks like the Bush administration may have engaged in torture to obtain false evidence of a link between al-Qa'ida and Iraq in order to justify an already-taken decision to go to war with Iraq

This is the key thing about the Bush-Cheney torture policy, and something that's often overlooked. The fact that torture produces false results was the whole point. It's not that they were stupid or incompetent for implementing a policy that had little chance of success, they undertook this policy knowing full-well that it had little chance of "success," but stood a good chance of justifying a policy they had already decided upon. They needed bullshit intelligence to support their bullshit war. The best way to get someone to admit to something that's not true? Torture them.

Or as Jay Rosen Twittered a couple weeks ago:

You don't get it yet. Torture gives you false information. Now that wasn't a bug but a feature. Only fake facts could validate a phony case.