John is absolutely right that the hijinks at Abu Ghraib were not

torture. I don’t think we can conclude, though, that they had nothing

to do with interrogation. The reason so many military and intel people

have been disciplined beyond just the prison guards (it’s up over 40

now, I think) is that there may be some force to the claim by the prison

guards that they were encouraged by the intel people on-scene to create

an environment that would be conducive to more forthcoming answers to

interrogation. As Gonzales observed, that’s why there are so many

ongoing investigations — to find out what happened, and why. That

doesn’t make it torture — unpleasant coercive interrogation,

notwithstanding the ICRC and Sen. Leahy, is not torture. But the idiocy

that went on may have been related to interrogation.