I take the opportunity to endorse an editorial in this newspaper:
[A] number of commentators are yearning for easy answers and arguing that, when confronted by the threat of terrorism, torture is justified if it means saving lives. They are wrong.They are wrong even against the sort of example which is standardly brought up (and which the editorial itself discusses) to test any absolutist moral prohibition on torture. That example is always clear-cut and simple, and real life cases of the use of torture never are. Unless the heavens are about to fall if you don't do so, it is wrong to torture another person. And if the heavens are about to fall, it is still wrong. The choice before you then is a tragic and unbearable one - between two terrible evils - and should be seen and felt as such.