No military assistance link between Iran and Iraq has been proved

Even when we tortured captured Iranians: (my bold)

WASHINGTON - The George W Bush administration's campaign to seize and detain Iranian Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) officials in Iraq, presented by Bush himself in January as a move to break up an alleged Iranian arms smuggling operation in Iraq, appears to have run its course without having been able to link a single Iranian to any such operation.

Despite administration rhetoric suggesting that the US military had solid intelligence on which to base a campaign to break up Iranian-sponsored networks supplying armor-piercing weapons, what is now known about the kidnapping operations indicates that the actual purpose was to obtain some evidence from interrogations that would support the administration's line that the IRGC's elite Quds Force is involved in assisting Shi'ite forces militarily.

None of the remaining six Iranians now held by the US military, however, has provided any evidence for the administration's case, despite many months of very tough interrogation usually employed on "high-value" detainees.

Wayne White, former deputy director of the US Bureau of Intelligence and Research Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia, told Inter Press Service he believes the administration badly wanted to get information from the Iranian detainees that they could use to make their case, but it has been unable to do so.

"I'm convinced that they haven't gotten anything out of them," he said in an interview. "They haven't come up with anything they can shop around."

The program has also been a political embarrassment in relations with US allies in Iraq. US military seizures of Iranians whom the US military claimed were IRGC Quds Force officers have been condemned not only by the Shi'ite government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, but also by Kurdish leaders. The US military apologized in August for "a regrettable incident" in which eight Iranians were arrested in Baghdad, and soon freed after Iraqi protests.

And the US quietly released nine Iranian detainees last week, two of whom were seized in the Kurdish city of Irbil in January, saying they were "of no continuing intelligence value".

So... what is the next step when we've found torture doesn't work. Do we just dump the victims out on the nearest road and tell them not to have any hard feelings? Is there any realization that this torture has created many more terrorists? This time with a very rational reason for hating the United States?

Update: And while we're on the subject, Iran isn't close to having a nuclear weapon:

Kuwait City, Kuwait (AHN) - Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday that Iran is far from acquiring nuclear armament. He declared that an Islamic attack by the country is unlikely at this point, refuting the concerns and the claims of the current U.S. government about Iran's dangerous nuclear weaponry potential.

The United States and some of its allies have recently been pressing down on Iran, challenging its claims of ambitions for a peaceful nuclear program. The U.S. government has raised the alarm on Iran's uranium enrichment program, and threatening to slap the nation with heavy sanctions.

Mr. Powell expressed his doubts and disagreements regarding this sentiment, saying "I think Iran is a long way from having anything that could be anything like a nuclear weapon," as quoted by the Associated Press.

In an investigation done by the U.N. nuclear watchdog the IAEA, it was revealed that there was no solid evidence of Iran developing nuclear power for the sake of atomic weapon acquisition. The Iranian Ambassador to Pakistan, Mashallah Shakeri, further insisted this claim.