Torture apologists are reaching precisely the wrong conclusion from the back-story of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, say experienced interrogators and intelligence professionals.

Defenders of the Bush administration’s interrogation policies have claimed vindication from reports that bin Laden was tracked down in small part due to information received from brutalized detainees some six to eight years ago.

But that sequence of events — even if true — doesn’t demonstrate the effectiveness of torture, these experts say. Rather, it indicates bin Laden could have been caught much earlier had those detainees been interrogated properly.

“I think that without a doubt, torture and enhanced interrogation techniques slowed down the hunt for bin Laden,” said an Air Force interrogator who goes by the pseudonym Matthew Alexander and located Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, in 2006.

It now appears likely that several detainees had information about a key al Qaeda courier — information that might have led authorities directly to bin Laden years ago. But subjected to physical and psychological brutality, “they gave us the bare minimum amount of information they could get away with to get the pain to stop, or to mislead us,” Alexander told The Huffington Post.

“We know that they didn’t give us everything, because they didn’t provide the real name, or the location, or somebody else who would know that information,” he said.

In a 2006 study by the National Defense Intelligence College, trained interrogators found that traditional, rapport-based interviewing approaches are extremely effective with even the most hardened detainees, whereas coercion consistently builds resistance and resentment.

“Had we handled some of these sources from the beginning, I would like to think that there’s a good chance that we would have gotten this information or other information,” said Steven Kleinman, a longtime military intelligence officer who has extensively researched, practiced and taught interrogation techniques.

“By making a detainee less likely to provide information, and making the information he does provide harder to evaluate, they hindered what we needed to accomplish,” said Glenn L. Carle, a retired CIA officer who oversaw the interrogation of a high-level detainee in 2002.

But the discovery and killing of bin Laden was enough for defenders of the Bush administration to declare that their policies had been vindicated.

Liz Cheney, daughter of the former vice president, quickly issued a statement declaring that she was “grateful to the men and women of America’s intelligence services who, through their interrogation of high-value detainees, developed the information that apparently led us to bin Laden.”

John Yoo, the lead author of the “Torture Memos,” wrote in the Wall Street Journal that bin Laden’s death “vindicates the Bush administration, whose intelligence architecture marked the path to bin Laden’s door.”

Former Bush secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld declared that “the information that came from those individuals was critically important.”

The Obama White House pushed back against that conclusion this week.

“The bottom line is this: If we had some kind of smoking-gun intelligence from waterboarding in 2003, we would have taken out Osama bin Laden in 2003,” Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council, told The New York Times.

At the World Trade Center site itself, he made no speeches, simply leaving a wreath composed of red, white and blue flowers in front of what has come to be known as the “Survivor Tree.” Then Obama walked over to 14-year-old Payton Wall, whose father was killed nearby nearly ten years ago, and gave her a hug.

“We just talked,” Wall told television crews after her meeting with the president, which was prompted by a letter she wrote him just days ago. She was joined by her younger sister, a friend who also lost a parent on 9/11, and her mother.

Before that visit to Lower Manhattan, Obama met with a group of New York City firefighters in a station that lost 15 members on September 11, 2001. Bin Laden’s death, he said in his most extensive public remarks, sent a message “that when we say we will never forget, we mean what we say.”

And, he added pointedly, he believed that “when those guys took those extraordinary risks going into Pakistan, that they were doing it in part because of the sacrifices that were made in the States. They were doing it in the name of your brothers that were lost.”

Although some on the right had contended that Obama’s visit to New York would serve as little more than a “victory lap,” including, supposedly, an anonymous member of the George W. Bush camp, the mood throughout the day was somber. The trip was Obama’s first to Ground Zero since 2008.

After he laid the wreath just steps from where the World Trade Center towers once stood, Obama had a private meeting with about 60 people who lost family members on 9/11.

For Lee Ielpi, a retired member of the FDNY whose firefighter son died responding to the attack on the World Trade Center, that meeting was “casual.” He noted that “there was no script. I was impressed, he spoke from the heart, he was very sincere, he spoke about the mission and that it was accomplished, which I really thought was very nice.”

Inside the meeting, President Obama spoke for a short time to the assembled family members as a whole.

“There’s a word that most families don’t like or understand, and that’s closure, and he never said it,” Ielpi told HuffPost afterward. “The word he used was peace — I hope this brings some peace to your families.”

After that, the president went from table to table speaking with the family members. Ielpi described a quiet but “very powerful” series of encounters. “He went and spoke with every single family member there — shook their hands, shared a tear with them.”

Debra Burlingame, an often-time critic of the president from the right whose brother was the pilot of the plane that flew into the Pentagon, told Fox News the event was “very social.” The president’s entrance was “almost like a neighbor coming into a barbecue, there was no pomp, no ceremony.” She left still dissatisfied with the president’s policies.

Talat Hamdani, a Muslim American critic of Guantanamo whose son was a NYPD cadet killed responding to the attacks, said she was surprised at how much the president’s visit meant to her. “I never realized that I would feel all these emotions, feeling overwhelmed,” she said.

“It was just a, you know, a very special moment, especially at the 9/11 memorial, to know that your president cares for you,” she said. She too described a quiet, sober meeting: “He exudes so much calmness, it was inexpressible.”

Brennan Basnicki, 26, whose father was killed on September 11, did not attend, saying that “While President Obama’s visit is a kind and respectable gesture, the reality is that his visit doesn’t change the events that have taken place.”

The meeting with family members lasted less than an hour, and then the president was gone, leaving on a helicopter for Kennedy International Airport.

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who attended the wreath ceremony, expressed satisfaction with the trip, saying, “I was inspired by the strength of the families who stood here today, thinking of their loved ones, knowing that the first chapter has closed and moving to the next chapter.”

Gillibrand was joined by a number of prominent politicians from New York and the tri-state area, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Republican elected officials like Rep. Peter King (N.Y.) and Gov. Chris Christie (N.J.).

King said, “Visiting Ground Zero was the appropriate thing for the President to do. It was very meaningful to the 9/11 families. The President handled it with great dignity.”

Many details of the trip came together at the last minute, with some invitees receiving invitations just a few hours before Obama arrived in the city. The small number of family members who were able to attend — just around 60 relatives for the nearly 3,000 individuals who died on September 11 — led to some complaints about the selection process.

Donna Marsh O’Connor, who lost a daughter on 9/11, said before Obama’s trip that “The visit is fine but the mysterious planning for it is divisive and problematic.” According to the White House, invitees were chosen in consultation with the National 9/11 Memorial and were intended to serve as a “cross section” of family members.

For Ielpi, that cross section worked, creating a “diverse” group around him. And even though fierce critics of the president like 9/11 Burlingame were invited, he said he “didn’t hear any politics.”

Though President Obama invited his predecessor to attend the memorial, Bush declined. The event as a whole stood in stark contrast to George W. Bush’s famous stand atop the World Trade Center rubble with a bullhorn, where he promised that “the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!”

Nearly ten years later, after two wars and a long, frustrating search for justice for Bin Laden’s victims, Obama seemed content for the most part to let SEAL Team Six’s work speak for itself. On Friday he will meet with members of that elite team.

Paul McDonald’s journey on this season of “American Idol” may have come to an end on Thursday night, April 14, but his girlfriend Nikki Reed isn’t upset at all about the elimination. In fact, the 26-year-old musician opens up that the “Twilight Saga” actress he is “officially dating” is actually happy about it.

When asked if 22-year-old Nikki is bummed about his exit, Paul told People Magazine, “She is actually pumped.” The singer with the megawatt smile continued, “She said, ‘Dude, you finally get to do your thing and be yourself and be the artist you are.’ She is happy about the whole situation. She has been nothing but cool to me.”

Paul and Nikki have been linked romantically earlier this month. Us Weekly reported that after the two met on the red carpet of the “Red Riding Hood” premiere in March, they have kept in touch with each other. Accordingly, they have been going on a series of virtual dates via Skype. Soon after the news came out, a source told E! Online that Nikki calls Paul her “boyfriend”.

In a press call after he was eliminated, Paul came forward to confirm their relationship. “Yeah, well me and Nikki Reed are dating,” he said. “It’s officially true. She’s super cool, man, she’s super smart, really cool girl. I’m happy about it. We’ve been hanging out, here and there, you know we’re both pretty busy, but it’s been fun so far.”

As for his exit from the competition, Paul shared with E!, “When I first tried out for this, it was just kind of for fun, and I didn’t even expect to get this far in the competition. So when I got here, I kind of listened to some people when I probably should have stuck with my guns.”

“I’m actually not very good at singing other people’s songs. There’s only so much you can do singing other people’s songs to get them across. I wish I had done more obscure artists, more of the vibe of music I was into. I didn’t feel comfortable a whole lot of the time up there because it felt like it wasn’t me all the time but it was an amazing learning experience doing all this TV.”

On his plan after “Idol”, he told People mag, “I have this other side that I didn’t even start to show.” He added, “I play keys. It’s hard to do in a minute and a half of a cover song so I’m looking forward to doing my own thing and getting creative again.” He also said that he wants “to release a solo album” with Stefano Langone, James Durbin and Jacob Lusk “play on the record”.

Music festical season kicks off tonight in Indio, California with the 12th year of the Coachella music festival. The sold-out festival includes headliners Arcade Fire, Kings of Leon and Kanye West. This year the festival set-up is said to transform the idea of live performance into something new and 100-times more intense and fun.

According to BBC, the music festival has paired up with New York-based technology and global culture initiative The Creators Project. What is anticipated to awe ticket buyers this year is the main stage design. Created by the British design team United Visual Artists, the stage is a 25-metre tall, skeletal structure that resembles a giant Rubik’s Cube, as BBC reports. The most intriguing part to the design is the chain of controllable lights that make up the structure. live online here

As reported by BBC, the thin strips of light are set to constantly change pattern and intensity according to what artist is playing at the time and what design they created. The headliners, Interpol and Animal Collective have worked together in creating their own designs for the structure during performances. BBC states the “big idea is to transform the festival’s stages into performers in their own right and to create memorable moments that will take the crowd by surprise.”

The directors of the sold-out festival hope to change the live performance experience and the face of music festivals all together. “The stage is a character. When the stage actually becomes part of the show, opening and closing behind bands, it’s going to change how music festivals do it,” said Shane Smith, co-founder of the media company VICE which is a creative partner of Coachella. “I think this is going to be spectacular and people are going to start saying, ‘wow that’s the new gold standard’.”

The all ages Coachella is completely sold-out and is the first festival of the season that rages all summer long. As CNN reported, the festival represents the unofficial kickoff to what is beginning to look like a banner year for festivals, which are growing in both size and number domestically and internationally.

Other artists that are set to perform at Coachella include Duran Duran, Lauryn Hill, Caspa, Daedelus, Ratatat and many more. watch it live

The Statue of Liberty that graces the 2011 Forever stamp is not the Lady Liberty in New York. Indeed, it’s that of a very popular Lady Liberty, who has welcomed the lucky and the losers on Las Vegas Boulevard, outside the New York New York hotel and casino.

According to the U.S. Postal Service’s original press release for the stamp that was issued in December, the photograph used for the stamp was supposed to be that of the iconic figure who has been welcoming the tired, poor and huddled masses in New York Harbor for 125 years.

But now the USPS is admitting that the photo used for the recent Forever stamp is a replica who also welcomes the tired, poor and huddled masses, but of a different sort: Las Vegas gamblers and tourists.

“We still love the stamp design and would have selected this photograph anyway,” USPS spokesman, Roy Betts told the New York Times, adding that the post office is “re-examining our processes to prevent this situation from happening in the future.”

Friday marked the 64th anniversary of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson breaking baseball’s color barrier. To commemorate Robinson’s achievement, Major League Baseball once again had all players wear Robinson’s No. 42.

Robinson was one of the great Americans of the 20th century. “What he accomplished on the baseball field,” A’s pitcher Dallas Braden said, “has kind of taken a backseat, in my opinion, to what he’s done for us as a society.”

Oakland manager Bob Geren said Robinson’s dynamic on-field performance shouldn’t be forgotten. “I wish I could have (seen) him play, to be honest with you,” Geren said. “I think that his style of play would be perfect in today’s game, too.”

According to a report from US Weekly, Interscope Records, chaired by “Idol” mentor Jimmy Iovin, are rushing Toscano into the studio to record an album.

“Starting [Thursday] night after the show, Interscope told her they wanted her and first thing [Friday] morning Interscope brass started calling every top songwriter and producer in town to get an album together and rush release it,” a source familiar with the contract told US Weekly.

According to the same source, paperwork is being finalized and the deal is basically done.

In an unexpected turn of events, Toscano was voted off “Idol” on Thursday, receiving the fewest votes among the remaining nine contestants. Fans of the LaGuardia High School graduate, however, can hear her voice when she hits the road this summer with the “American Idol” tour, and can listen to her on iTunes.

7:58 PM ET — Crowd is on its way into the theater, but tonight something is missing — the “no hecklers” sign. Seeing as how it didn’t work on Friday night, it doesn’t really matter.

8:02 PM ET — How’s this for random … James Lipton is in the house (see below). Charlie, what’s your favorite curse word?

8:11 PM ET — Sheen pal Simon Rex has taken the stage to inspect the crowd. No sign of Charlie yet.

8:19 PM ET — Sheen has taken the stage and the show is entirely different from Friday night. The crowd has been cheering Sheen on, rather than booing him. He entered to a standing ovation and told the crowd, “I don’t even think I was here Friday night.”

8:22 PM ET — Sheen is taking questions from the crowd after he threw his script away. He told the crowd, “Friday night got a little f**king hijacked because I let people get into my magic f**king brain.”

8:24 PM ET — The goddesses came out early tonight and handed out hats and t-shirts. A girl came up on stage to “audition” to be the third goddess. She left the stage to mixed reviews.

8:30 PM ET — The crowd just broke out in a “F**k Dr. Drew” chant. Then Charlie lit up a cigarette.

8:35 PM ET — Charlie just gave his shirt to a hot blonde in the crowd, then put on an FDNY shirt. He then offered to pay for the whole crowd to get “WINNING” tattoos.

8:38 PM ET — Sheen is actually up and walking around, interacting with the crowd. He didn’t do anything like that on Friday.

8:43 PM ET — Charlie just called James Lipton onto the stage. He actually did ask Charlie what his favorite curse word was. Charlie answered, “Either f**k or Denise.”

8:49 PM ET — Even more random … baseball legend Darryl Strawberry just came up on stage.

8:53 PM ET — Just to give you an idea of how much better tonight’s show is going compared to Friday’s — we sent the same disgruntled staffer to the show tonight and she just tweeted, “Whoa this is ridiculous. @charliesheen is killling it – huge 180 from friday! Loving it”

9:00 PM ET — Charlie is back from intermission and walked back down to the stage after coming down from the mezzanine. He spotted a girl he used to date and gave her a hug and kiss.

9:03 PM ET — Charlie: “I discovered crack and the internet in the same weekend. Thanks, Al Gore.”

9:08 PM ET — Charlie calls Jon Cryer a rock star and apologizes for calling him a troll. Hallmark makes cards for just these types of occasions.

9:11 PM ET — Charlie once again says he would go back to “Two and a Half Men” if they asked him back and encouraged the crowd to go to Warner Bros. and ask him back. Not happening.

9:15 PM ET — Charlie is talking about Chuck Lorre and he said he “doesn’t completely suck.” Charlie said “they” want him to write an apology or else he wouldn’t get his job back. He said he vows to do just that.

9:20 PM ET — Charlie told the crowd he loved them and walked off to a standing ovation. Show’s over. Charlie killed it tonight. ‘Nuff said.

The tighter security rules — imposed after the attempted bombing of an airliner on Christmas 2009 — reveal a security threat that persisted for more than seven years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Until then, even as commercial passengers were forced to remove their shoes, limit the amount of shampoo in their carry-on luggage and endure pat downs, hundreds of foreigners with known or suspected ties to terrorism passed through security and successfully flew to the United States each year, U.S. officials told the AP. The government said these foreigners typically told Customs officers they were flying to the U.S. for legitimate reasons such as vacations or business.

Security practices changed after an admitted Al Qaeda operative from Nigeria was accused of trying to blow himself up on a flight to Detroit on Christmas 2009. Until then, airlines only kept passengers off U.S.-bound planes if they were on the no-fly list, a list of people considered a threat to aviation.

Now before an international flight leaves for the U.S., the government checks passengers against a larger watch list that includes Al Qaeda financiers and people who attended training camps but aren’t considered threats to planes. The government was checking this list before, but only after the flight was en route. If someone on the flight was on the watch list, the person would be questioned and likely refused entry to the country after the plane landed.

“As terrorists keep adapting and changing their approach, so must we,” Sen. Jay Rockefeller told the AP. During a Senate hearing shortly after the attempted Christmas attack, Rockefeller raised concerns about divisions among the different watch lists.

Hundreds of people linked to Al Qaeda, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other terror groups have been kept off airplanes under the new rules. They include what U.S. officials described as a member of a terrorist organization who received weapons training, recruited others, fought against American troops and had a ticket to fly to the U.S. Another traveler prevented from boarding a U.S.-bound flight was a member of a terrorist organization whom intelligence officials believe had purchased equipment for terrorism.

A third case, in January, involved a Jordanian man booked from Amman, Jordan, to Chicago, who was considered a threat to national security, according to a law enforcement official. The State Department had already revoked his visa. He was on the terrorist watch list but not the no-fly list. He was not considered a threat to aviation.

After U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers performed the now-routine check, the man was kept off the flight. Before the change, he would have arrived in Chicago, where he would have likely been stopped at customs, questioned and sent home.

The law enforcement official and other U.S. officials insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues. They would not provide the names of the people suspected of terror ties or some key details about the cases for security reasons.

“We’ve gotten better with our techniques and applying them predeparture, ensuring we’re looking at as broad a section of potential risk as possible,” said Kevin McAleenan, deputy assistant commissioner of field operations at Customs and Border Protection.

CBP said the gap in U.S. security practices wasn’t obvious until after the attempted Christmas attack. Officials were prepared to question the accused bomber when he landed in Detroit — but that turned out to be too late.

“We had the skill set, the systems and the techniques, and we needed to move backwards in time,” McAleenan said.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the terror watch list and its derivative, the no-fly list, became some of the government’s best-known counterterrorism tools. They also became some of the most criticized, as innocent travelers were inconvenienced when they were mistaken for terrorism suspects. Outrage forced the government to pare the lists, which airlines checked before allowing people to fly.

After the attempted Christmas attack, the intelligence community took a closer look at the names on terror watch lists and set new standards for adding names to them. The watch lists, including the most restrictive no-fly list, are constantly reviewed. Names are added and removed each day. There are between 11,000 and 12,000 people on the no-fly list, about 1,000 of which are U.S. citizens, a U.S. official told Fox News.

The most expansive terror watch list is comprised of about 450,000 names of people the U.S. intelligence community believes has or could have ties to terrorists. Many of the people on this list are still being investigated.

Simply being on the most expansive watch list does not mean a person won’t be allowed to enter the U.S. When Customs and Border Protection reviews passenger lists and matches someone on the terror watch lists, CBP will check information available on the person before it recommends to the airline whether the person can board the plane, McAleenan said. In most cases, if CBP recommends against allowing the passenger to board, it’s because the person would be turned away upon arrival inside the United States due to security concerns.

American citizens who are not considered threats to aviation but are on the terror watch list cannot automatically be prevented from flying to the U.S.

Customs officers will likely question a U.S. citizen who is on the terror watch list when he or she comes into the country. But without grounds for arrest, the officers must let them arrive. This also applies to a U.S. citizen who is on the no-fly list but who walks or drives back into the U.S. through land-border crossings.

Senior White House adviser David Plouffe weighed in on the presidential ambitions of Donald Trump on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.

“I saw Donald Trump kind of rising in some polls and given his behavior and spectacle the last couple of weeks, I hope he keeps on rising,” said Plouffe. “There is zero chance that Donald Trump would ever be hired by the American people to do this job.”

In recent weeks, Trump has captured headlines and sparked controversy by repeatedly raising skepticism over whether President Barack Obama is a citizen of the United States. He has released his own official birth certificate and has called on Obama to do the same despite the fact that the president’s birth records have been available online for over three years. Last week, Trump signaled that he has investigators on the ground in Hawaii in search of more details on the president’s birthplace.

Plouffe called the actions demonstrated by Trump “sideshow behavior.”

“There may be a small part of the country that believes these things, but mainstream Americans think it’s a sideshow,” he said, adding that voters want political leaders to focus on the economy and pressing policy issues.

Karl Rove and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) are two conservatives who have expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that Trump continues to hammer the issue.

Nevertheless, Trump raised doubt over the president’s citizenship once again in an interview that aired on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. He called the ordeal “a strange situation” and suggested that it’s because of the media that “the word birther is a negative word.”