9/11 Commission conclusions - based on torture confessions?

The 9/11 Commission suspected that critical information it used in its landmark report was the product of harsh interrogations of al-Qaida operatives - interrogations that many critics have labeled torture. Yet, commission staffers never questioned the agency about the interrogation techniques and in fact ordered a second round of interrogations specifically to ask additional questions of the same operatives, NBC News has learned...

The analysis shows that much of what was reported about the planning and execution of the terror attacks on New York and Washington was derived from the interrogations of high-ranking al-Qaida operatives. Each had been subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques." Some were even subjected to waterboarding, the most controversial of the techniques, which simulates drowning.

The NBC News analysis shows that more than one quarter of all footnotes in the 9/11 Report refer to CIA interrogations of al-Qaida operatives who were subjected to the now-controversial interrogation techniques. In fact, information derived from the interrogations is central to the Report’s most critical chapters, those on the planning and execution of the attacks...

At least four of the operatives whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report have claimed that they told interrogators critical information as a way to stop being "tortured."

Many or most sensible people now agree that the reliability of confessions obtained by torture or "enhanced interrogation" is at least questionable, if not totally unreliable. As Jesse Ventura said in his interview with Larry King, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.

One wonders whether anyone will have the balls to ask if another commission can re-evaluate, if not the central tenet of the 9/11 Commission conclusions, at least some aspects of the details? I doubt it, but one can hope.

Please note, the comments cited at the top of this post come not from a fringe website, but from NBC/MSNBC News.