Washington, Apr. 25 : A military agency has said that harsh interrogation techniques can often yield unreliable information from terrorism suspects.

In a July 2002 document sent to the Pentagon''''s chief lawyer, the military''''s Joint Personnel Recovery Agency warned: "The unintended consequence of a U. S. policy that provides for the torture of prisoners is that it could be used by our adversaries as justification for the torture of captured U. S. personnel."

The Washington Post has obtained the document, an unsigned two-page attachment to a memo, in full.

The document offers the clearest evidence yet on the counter-productivity of harsh interrogation methods.

The document was included among July 2002 memorandums that described severe techniques used against Americans in past conflicts and the psychological effects of such treatment.

The JPRA ran the military program known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), which trains pilots and others to resist hostile questioning.

The cautionary attachment was forwarded to the Pentagon''''s Office of the General Counsel as the administration finalized the legal underpinnings of a CIA interrogation program that would sanction the use of 10 forms of coercion, including water boarding, a technique that simulates drowning.

The JPRA material was sent from the Pentagon to the CIA''''s acting general counsel, John A. Rizzo, and on to the Justice Department, according to testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. (ANI)