Eleven retired military leaders “strongly support” proposed amendments by U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) “requiring all interrogations of detainees in Department of Defense (DOD) custody to conform to the U.S. Army’s Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation (FM 34-52), and prohibiting the use of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by any U.S. government agency.” The New York Times reported today that McCain could attach the amendments to the 2006 DOD authorization bill, which the Senate will debate next week, and that the White House is threatening to veto the DOD authorization bill if the McCain amendments are included in it (see article at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/politics/24cheney.html?).
“It is now apparent that the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere took place in part because our men and women in uniform were given ambiguous instructions, which in some cases authorized treatment that went beyond what was allowed by the Army Field Manual,” wrote the retired military leaders in a letter to Sen. McCain (see http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/etn/pdf/mccain-072205.pdf). “Administration officials confused matters further by declaring that U.S. personnel are not bound by longstanding prohibitions of cruel treatment when interrogating non-U.S. citizens on foreign soil… The United States should have one standard for interrogating enemy prisoners that is effective, lawful, and humane. Fortunately, America already has the gold standard in the Army Field Manual. Had the Manual been followed across the board, we would have been spared the pain of the prisoner abuse scandal.”
The letter signers include former Congressman and Vietnam Ambassador Douglas "Pete" Peterson, a distinguished combat veteran of the Vietnam War who was incarcerated as a prisoner of war (POW) during that conflict for more than six years; Brigadier General James Cullen (Ret. USA), a retired Brigadier General in the United States Army Reserve Judge Advocate General's Corps who last served as the Chief Judge (IMA) of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals; Brigadier General David M. Brahms (Ret. USMC); who served as the Marine Corps' senior legal adviser from 1983 until 1988 and sits on the board of directors of the Judge Advocates Association; Rear Admiral John D. Hutson (Ret. USN), who served as the Navy's Judge Advocate General from 1997 to 2000 and has testified before Congress about abuse and torture at U.S. detention facilities; and Brigadier General David R. Irvine (Ret. USA), a retired Army Reserve strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner interrogation and military law for 18 years with the Sixth Army Intelligence†School.
Brahms, Cullen and Hutson are among eight retired military leaders who wrote President Bush last September and called for an independent, 9/11-style commission to investigate U.S. detention and interrogation practices at U.S.-operated detention facilities (see letter at http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/media/2004_alerts/0907.htm). Since then, numerous other opinion leaders, including former CIA official and former House Judiciary Committee member Bob Barr (R-GA), have called for such a commission. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told The New York Times last month that he had until now resisted the idea of Congressional action to review issues related to prisoner abuse, but the uproar related to the latest accusations of abuse at Guant·namo had convinced him that “we've crossed that point where that isn't working anymore.” Sen. Graham added that the U.S. needed “to prove to the world that we are a rule-of-law nation” (see article at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/
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Senators Carl Levin (D-MI), Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), John Rockefeller (D-WV) and Jack Reed (D-RI), say they will offer an amendment to the DOD authorization bill that would establish such an independent 9/11 style commission (see news release at http://www.levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=241196).
