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22 Retired Military Officers Ask Bush to Ban Torture

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees
Posted on Fri Jan 20, 2006 at 04:56:57 AM EST
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The ruckus over Bush's signing statement attached to the McCain anti-torture amendment continues. 22 high-ranking former military officers have written a letter to President Bush asking him to enforce the amendment.

When U.S. President George W. Bush in December signed the law banning cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees championed by Sen. John McCain R-Ariz., he did so with a caveat: As commander-in-chief, he can waive the limits when he deems necessary for national security.

The generals and admirals who signed the letter Thursday, including a former four-star commander of Central Command, said the issue is less about the detainees as it is about the values that the military holds dear.

"Clear and unambiguous implementation will help ensure that our brave men and women in uniform will never again feel that to prevail against the enemy they must risk their honor or the values they fight to protect," the letter states.

As Rear. Adm. John Hutson, a former Navy lawyer puts it:

These rules we have purported so long were not designed to protect the enemy from us, but us from the enemy. The difference between us and the enemy is how we treat the enemy."

Huston also took a swipe at former Guantanamo Commander Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who took the 5th to avoid testifying in a court-martial case of a soldier charged with abusing detainees (background here)

That's not the way it's done. You stand up, testify honestly, take it like a man," Hutson said.

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