Firsthand combat experiences compel old guard to attack Bush's 'alternative interrogation.'
By Charles Kaiser -- Los Angeles Times
CHARLES KAISER, author of "1968 in America" and "The Gay Metropolis," is completing "The Cost of Courage," a book about a French family that fought in the Resistance in Paris during World War II.
Sept. 24, 2006 -- FOR ONE 83-year-old veteran of World War II, it was the searing memory of a Japanese prisoner who helped turn the tide on Iwo Jima. For a 40-year veteran of Army intelligence, it was a trip to the battlefield at Gettysburg. For all 43 retired generals and admirals, it was a combination of moral outrage and deep disgust over President Bush's proposed legislation on interrogating terrorist suspects that propelled them into unfamiliar territory.
"None of us feels comfortable speaking out publicly," said retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, who served as the Navy's judge advocate general from 1997 to 2000 and presided over the JAG corps' 1,600 members. "That's not the nature of what military officers do…. [But we] care very, very much about the country and the military -- and that's why [we] are speaking out."
The group of retired flag officers first came together in 2005, when a dozen of them signed a letter opposing the nomination of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general for his role in developing Bush's policies on torture in the war on terror. Late last year, they supported Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) ban on cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees in U.S. custody anywhere in the world.
And last week, the Republican senators with whom the retired officers are allied in a fight against Bush's proposed legislation to weaken the spirit and the letter of the Geneva Convention won a compromise with the administration. According to the agreement, all forms of torture would be banned, including waterboarding, which White House officials had insisted wasn't real torture, although it was one of the Gestapo's favorite techniques.
more
READ MORE: Los Angeles Times
