Part 2 of a series on the McCain amendment

Agreement? Like Bush had any other choice.

Well, Part 2 will be different from what it was going to be. One reason for the change is explained in the last section of Part 1, namely the fact that on December 14, the House voted 308-122 in favor of a non-binding motion which "specifically instructed House negotiators to include McCain's language, word for word, in the fiscal 2006 defense appropriations bill" (as reported in the Washington Post).

And then, lo and behold, the very next day, the Prez his ownself announces that he has reached an agreement with McCain on this legislation. Basically, McCain got everything he wanted, and the White House got McCain to agree to include language to bring the legislation into conformity with the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which says that anyone accused of violating interrogation rules can defend themselves if a “reasonable” person could have concluded they were following a lawful order. So, the ban on cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment McCain wanted all along will soon become law, and it will apply to all persons in the government (civilian and military) without exception, and the ban will apply to all situations, without exception. That is a far, far cry from what Bush and Big Dick wanted. Also, please note that the language to be added does not carve out any exceptions to the language McCain wanted and which will soon be the law.

And this "agreement" just happened to come the morning after it became absolutely clear that 74% of Congress supported the provision that Bush opposed. As a reminder, it takes 67 votes in the Senate and 290 in the House to override a veto. That means that on this matter, there was a 23 vote cushion in the Senate and an 18 vote cushion in the House. And this from a Congress with Republican majorities in both houses. Consequently, Bush had two choices: agree with McCain or get embarassed by the Republican-controlled Congress overriding his veto.

Bush should have made this "agreement" months earlier.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. How can I be so critical of good ol' George? Oh, I guess I am just so bitter that I cannot give him any credit at all.

Well, let's see how you feel at the end of this series.

For months there were plenty of people telling Bush to do something to ban torture. And I'm not talking about mere playground brats such as myself. I'm talking about high-level military and governmental officials with personal experience in these matters. And once again, Bush, Big Dick Cheney, and others blatantly ignored the voice of experience and tried to steamroll over everybody. Part 2 discloses who those military commanders are and what they had to say about eliminating torture and things close to torture (again, I am not going to get into definitions).

Subsequent parts of this series will examine many of the issues mentioned below.

The first time former military commanders spoke out

Back when Alberto Gonzales was nominated to become Attorney General (January 2005), a group of retired generals and admirals wrote a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The letter expressed opposition to the nomination based on Gonzales's memos and positions on torture and interrogation. The entire letter is worth reading, but here are some excerpts:

During his tenure as White House Counsel, Mr. Gonzales appears to have played a significant role in shaping U.S. detention and interrogation operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantánamo Bay, and elsewhere. Today, it is clear that these operations have fostered greater animosity toward the United States, undermined our intelligence gathering efforts, and added to the risks facing our troops serving around the world.

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The reasoning Mr. Gonzales advanced in this memo was rejected by many military leaders at the time, including Secretary of State Colin Powell who argued that abandoning the Geneva Conventions would put our soldiers at greater risk, would "reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practice in supporting the Geneva Conventions," and would "undermine the protections of the rule of law for our troops, both in this specific conflict [Afghanistan] and in general."

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Mr. Gonzales' reasoning was also on the wrong side of history. Repeatedly in our past, the United States has confronted foes that, at the time they emerged, posed threats of a scope or nature unlike any we had previously faced. But we have been far more steadfast in the past in keeping faith with our national commitment to the rule of law...The threats we face today - while grave and complex - no more warrant abandoning these basic principles than did the threats of enemies past.

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Perhaps most troubling of all, the White House decision to depart from the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan went hand in hand with the decision to relax the definition of torture and to alter interrogation doctrine accordingly...As James R. Schlesinger's panel reviewing Defense Department detention operations concluded earlier this year, these changes in doctrine have led to uncertainty and confusion in the field, contributing to the abuses of detainees at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, and undermining the mission and morale of our troops.

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The full extent of Mr. Gonzales' role in endorsing or implementing the interrogation practices the world has now seen remains unclear. A series of memos that were prepared at his direction in 2002 recommended official authorization of harsh interrogation methods, including waterboarding, feigned suffocation, and sleep deprivation. As with the recommendations on the Geneva Conventions, these memos ignored established U.S. military policy, including doctrine prohibiting "threats, insults, or exposure to inhumane treatment as a means of or aid to interrogation." Indeed, the August 1, 2002 Justice Department memo analyzing the law on interrogation references health care administration law more than five times, but never once cites the U.S. Army Field Manual on interrogation. The Army Field Manual was the product of decades of experience - experience that had shown, among other things that such interrogation methods produce unreliable results and often impede further intelligence collection. Discounting the Manual's wisdom on this central point shows a disturbing disregard for the decades of hardwon knowledge of the professional American military.

Granted, this letter does not address the McCain amendment for the simple reason that it predates the McCain amendment, but it addresses the very same issues as the McCain amendment. The point is that these military commanders made public the reasons why something like the McCain amendment was needed--and why the types of "interrogation" the Bush administration sought to preserve until Bush's "agreement" needed to be prohibited.

Here is the list of signatories to the letter:

• Brigadier General David M. Brahms (Ret. USMC)
• Brigadier General James Cullen (Ret. USA)
• Brigadier General Evelyn P. Foote (Ret. USA)
• Lieutenant General Robert Gard (Ret. USA)
• Vice Admiral Lee F. Gunn (Ret. USN)
• Admiral Don Guter (Ret. USN)
• General Joseph Hoar (Ret. USMC)
• Rear Admiral John D. Hutson (Ret. USN)
• Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy (Ret. USA)
• General Merrill McPeak (Ret. USAF)
• Major General Melvyn Montano (Ret. USAF Nat. Guard)
• General John Shalikashvili (Ret. USA)

Click on the link for this letter to read biographical info on each of these people.

The second time former military commanders spoke out

On October 18, 2005, eight of these same former commanders (Brahms, Cullen, Foote, Gard, Gunn, Hoar, Hutson, and Montano) were joined by 13 other former generals in sending another letter, this time to the House of Representatives. The 13 additional former generals were:

• Lieutenant General Ron Adams, USA (Ret.)
• Major General Eugene Fox, USA (Ret.)
• Lieutenant General Jay M. Garner, USA (Ret.)
• Major General Fred E. Haynes, USMC (Ret.)
• Brigadier General David R. Irvine, USA (Ret.)
• Vice Admiral Al Konetzni, USN (ret.)
• Brigadier General Richard O’Meara, USA (Ret.)
• Lieutenant General Charles Otstott, USA (Ret.)
• Major General Robert H. Scales, USA (Ret.)
• Brigadier General John K. Schmitt, USA (Ret.)
• Major General Michael J. Scotti, USA (Ret.)
• General Donn A. Starry, USA (Ret.)
• Brigadier General Stephen N. Xenakis, USA (Ret.)

This letter, which was written after the 90-9 Senate vote, does directly address the McCain amendment and why it needed to be enacted.

The amendment passed the Senate 90-9. We believe it is vital to the integrity of our intelligence gathering efforts -- and to the safety of our fighting men and women -- that this provision be included intact in the final bill.

The abuse of prisoners hurts America’s cause in the war on terror, endangers U.S. service members who might be captured by the enemy, and is anathema to the values Americans have held dear for generations. For many years, those values have been embodied in the Army Field Manual. The Manual applies the wisdom and experience gained by military interrogators in conflicts against both regular and irregular foes. It authorizes techniques that have proven effective in extracting life-saving information from the most hardened enemy prisoners. It also recognizes that torture and cruel treatment are ineffective methods, because they induce prisoners to say what their interrogators want to hear, even if it is not true, while bringing discredit upon the United States.

It is now apparent that the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo 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. 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. As a result, we suddenly had one set of rules for interrogating prisoners of war, and another for “enemy combatants;” one set for Guantánamo, and another for Iraq; one set for our military, and another for the CIA. Our service members were denied clear guidance, and left to take the blame when things went wrong. They deserve better than that.

...Had the Manual been followed across the board, we would have been spared the pain of the prisoner abuse scandal. It should be followed consistently from now on. And when agencies other than DOD detain and interrogate prisoners, there should be no legal loopholes permitting cruel or degrading treatment. Senate Amendment 1977 will achieve these goals, while preserving our nation’s ability to aggressively fight the war on terror. The provision reflects the experience and highest traditions of the United States military. We urge you to ensure that it is included without modification in the final bill.

Part 3 and beyond

These letters speak for themselves, but there is more to add to their concise and insightful statements, and I will attempt to do so beginning with Part 3. For now, please keep in mind the credentials and experience of the commanders who signed these letters. Bush always says that he listens to the military commanders, and yet in this instance he ignored their advice and counsel and did nothing until he was forced to. Also, notice that one of the signers of the October 18 letter was Jay Garner, the man Bush initially put in charge of post-war Iraq.