[kahljorn]

"I still maintain that the intel is not as reliable as intercepted communications thru infiltration or eavesdropping. The bad guys are less likely to make up lies when they don't know their enemy is standing right there, and I hope you don't need a CIA leak to tell you that"

Well i thought transmissions were generally coded so that nobody else could tell what they say, and I thought the same in general for conversations involving it (plus how dangerous is it to send people to where terrorists talk casually about killing people). Even people who buy pot use slang. I agree though alot of wars in the recent past have had good results from using decoded intercepted information. But then how do they figure out how to decode it? Traitors or torture?

Bad guys lie no matter what that's what the torture is for to make sure they aren't lying. I imagine most people in charge of torture have psychology degrees or something and are smart enough to trick people if they are lying. Generally the best way to figure out if a person is lying is to ask them details about it later and see if they can still remember it after a few days of "torture".