Did Bush torture for political reasons?

What's upsetting me today is this observation from Josh Marshell:

"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

I wish I could say I find this impossible to believe, but I don't. At bottom, Bush was a sneering frat boy with an Oedipal complex. It's not hard at all to imagine the ugly little princling dispatching goons with torture tools to find an excuse - any excuse - to launch the trillion dollar Iraq adventure. From the beginning Bush reeked of incompetence and insecurity. He came to the Oval Office untested, the beneficiary of his father's wealth, reputation, and connections.

He spoke of restoring dignity to the office of the presidency, but instead cavorted like the spoiled rich kid he was, insulting reporters from the podium, and attaching humiliating nicknames to his subordinates. After 9/11 he read a powerful speech from a paper handed to him by his aids, and for a month or two it seemed like he might rise to the occasion. He did not. Instead of making us safer, he made us a mockery. Instead of preserving the Constitution, he sent lawyers like John Yoo looking for loopholes, and for opportunities to augment the power of his office.

Again and again he justified his excesses, his shady secrecy, and what seemed to be a mad power grab by reminding us Big Brother-like that he was only keeping us safe, that his one abiding interest was the defense of this country. I thought he was wrong to sacrifice so much liberty for the sake of temporary safety (see Benjamin Franklin) but I believed that at least HE believed that he was breaking the law, and setting dangerous precedents for the sake of making us safer.

But now? Now, I think its altogether likely Bush was full of it.