IIRC the UK government was, rightly, castigated for using sleep deprivation and sensory deprivation as forms of torture in the 70s.

That was against terrorists as well.

It just so happened that this particular flavour of terrorist was supported by a vast swathe of the American public.

The thing about torture is that it is pretty useless in gaining any credible information. As the 'informant' will say anything, just to stop the process.

As for the USA using torture, it saddens me to see a great nation resort to barbarity.