“…..was given the green light by President Bush in a rare show of (relative) transparency…..”

Relative is definitely the operative word here. Ostensible would work as well. This requires a read between the lines…

• Bush’s decision to allow testimony on waterboarding, a major shift from his policy of keeping it under wraps, was prompted by heated public debate and a consensus in the administration on the need “to be very clear about how those techniques were used and what the benefits were,” Fratto said.

In short, they want us to believe that torture was actually ‘effective’ or had ‘benefits’ in obtaining valid information, because THAT”S what the administration based their entire 9/11 conspiracy on. They tortured KSM, repeatedly, via waterboarding and various other methods, and eventually, he ‘confessed’ to everything under the sun and the moon. And, it is ONLY his ‘confessions’ along with whatever else the made up, that form the entire foundation of the ‘official’ 9/11 conspiracy. There is NO independent corroboration of the 9/11 story about Islamic terrorists highjacking 4 airplanes and crashing them. NONE.
ZERO, NADA.

Everything the official story claims about 9/11, and this scenario, comes from KSM or one of the other ‘suspects’ UNDER TORTURE!! (which we know will produce ‘confessions’, but not necessarily true information).

So now, the gangster administration, (and probably not even george himself) have finally been forced to come out with it, and to try to prove that it (torture) works, in order to hold their story together, but also because public debate DID force this. This is a little bit like Cheney being resigned to acknowledging the NIE report regarding Iran’s NON-EXISTENT nuclear weapons program, once it had leaked out.