With Cheney and Rumsfeld in charge, it's entirely possible that this whole torture regime may have sprung from a late night viewing of "The Manchurian Candidate" and "The Battle of Algiers" over cigars and a six pack of Zima. That's about as strategically sophisticated as these guys get.
It's already been revealed (sorry, I don't have a quote handy) that Darth Cheney gets military 'ideas' from movies.
(If he got them from Star Trek, we wouldn't be in this mess.)