When he testified in the Senate this week, CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden didn't tell the committee anything it didn't already know or suspect about the use of harsh interrogation techniques.

Gen. Hayden admitted publicly for the first time that the CIA had used "waterboarding" on three suspects linked to the Sept. 11 plot: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rashim al-Nashiri. Although he insists the agency hasn't used the technique that simulates drowning in five years, he credits waterboarding with securing a quarter of the intelligence gathered on al-Qaida after Sept. 11.

The fact that torture is morally obnoxious goes without saying, but even the occasional use of waterboarding perpetuates the myth that officially sanctioned cruelty sometimes works. Fortunately, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III gave testimony that undercut that of Gen. Hayden.

Mr. Mueller told the committee that the FBI is able to extract crucial information from high-value detainees without resorting to coercion. All of which begs the question, why can't the CIA?

Gen. Hayden rejected the idea that the CIA should be bound by the same rules of interrogation that apply to the military and other intelligence agencies.

Having a CIA chief who tolerates torture even under extraordinary circumstances is worrisome. It is as corrosive a threat to our democracy as torture itself because it dehumanizes American society and takes away its moral authority to condemn other countries that use coercion as a political tool.

We agree with Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois that Attorney General Michael Mukasey should investigate whether laws were broken by the CIA. It goes without saying there already have been violations of the American spirit.