Bad Cop, Evil Cop

A reader writes:

I was shocked by something James Mitchell (one of the supposed architects of the torture program) said in his VICE interview: torture wasn’t supposed to yield actionable intelligence and he’d be “stunned” if it did. Why? Because we tortured people just to play good cop/bad cop and to loosen them up to other questioning! Seriously. I’m in disbelief, and I just wanted to make sure you all saw it. Thanks for all your hard work on this incredibly important story.