Torture Debate

The big question thats has been knocking upon the United States Government door in the past decade is "Is torture an acceptable form of information extraction when the lives of innocent civilians are in imminent danger?"
Many believe that any violation upon our natural human rights should not be accepted and torture is obviously an inhumane act committed upon a human being. The idea of bringing physical pain upon a human being to retrieve information seems to many that such an action can be prevented. The United States Government has been accused during Operation Iraqi Freedom of treating innocent civilians inhumanely. U.S. Soldiers received higher orders to take whatever actions necessary to get the needed information from these Iraqi civilians. The United States has been harshly criticized for the inhumane Nature in which they treat their prisoners, and something needs to be done to keep the lives of the innocent from danger and yet keep the prisoners natural human rights intact.
I believe the answer lies within the tactics that are used to extract information from the prisoners.