Mixed Messages on Torture.

Mark Benjamin, Salon.com:

In the war on terror, abusive interrogations of suspects don't work. You get faulty information. The rough stuff has been proven worthless and should be banned.

Or, harsh interrogation tactics have been a successful and indispensable tool that has generated crucial intelligence to foil terror plots that would have otherwise caused death and destruction inside the United States.

Both versions were true in Washington on Wednesday, depending on whom you asked -- the Pentagon or the White House -- and depending on whether you watched the president's nationally broadcast afternoon press conference or a press conference by a general on a cable channel little seen outside military bases.

On Wednesday afternoon, President Bush announced the transfer of 14 high-value terrorism suspects to Guantánamo for trials. He said that the suspects had been held outside the country by the CIA, and then admitted they had been detained as part of a secret program that also included specialized interrogation techniques, techniques the president described as "tough." Most observers believe the president was referring to a long-rumored program involving secret CIA prisons, or "black sites," where terrorism suspects have allegedly been sequestered, interrogated and perhaps tortured.

Meanwhile, across the Potomac, an Army general unveiled a new Army interrogations manual designed to fit squarely within the protections of the Geneva Conventions. That new manual specifically bars hooding, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, mock executions and many of the other "tough" techniques allegedly practiced in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo and the black sites.