Doug - that quote from The Guardian was actually a quote from The Observer. That's not much difference (though I did indicate this in the post, so you must have been speed reading). More to the point though, as the story indicates, the allegation is taken from the Washington Post, as also is the quote from an unnamed US Government official which appears to substantiate it.

A conscientious paper indicates when an allegation is not proven by the use of expressions such as "it is believed", and the Guardian and the Observer are conscientious papers. There are plenty of papers which fudge this kind of thing, and I don't put much stock by them. I believe the Washington Post is another conscientious paper, which tries to indicate what's fact and what's comment. (The Tory Daily Telegraph is another, and personally I wouldn't disparage a story - as opposed to an editorial or comment column - just because it appeared in a paper whose politics I did not share.)

The actual facts in this business are open to investigation and it'd be wrong to jump prematurely to conclusions. There is room for different beliefs and suspicions about whether torture is being permitted and encouraged by agents of our Governments. My view is that the previous records of the agencies under suspicion have to be taken into account, and unfortunately there is clear evidence of the sue of torture by both our countries. But that still just adds up to suspicion.

However when people assert that torture is a permissible thing to do, that goes too far. It's the kind of disagreement that breaks off communication.