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Torture not acceptable, retired generals say

Group visits Anderson to share their message

By John Staed

Friday, January 11, 2008

ANDERSON — A group of retired military officers are taking the Bush administration to task for its handling — or mishandling — of the Geneva Convention in warfare.

The administration’s decision to allow torture of detainees and military prisoners goes against long-established military tradition and values of the United States, said Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Charles Otstott. He was among several retired military officers who visited the Anderson Independent-Mail on Friday to explain their effort.

The officers were invited by Human Rights First to discuss the subject and are attempting to get their message through to the presidential candidates, They have met with both Democrats and Republicans, Mr. Otstott said, to explain their message to the next commander-in-chief.

“I think it’s important to national security to get this right, to set a standard …. and for the protection of our own soldiers,” said Mr. Otstott, who served two combat tours in Vietnam and was commander of the 25th Infantry Division.

Torture, he said, is a last resort to extract information, and if often results in bad information, he said.

Normal interrogation techniques “are far more effective,” he said.

“We spent our careers working for the rule of law … and are unhappy that we’ve gotten off the moral high ground,” Mr. Otstott said.

The “ticking time bomb” question posed to candidates is disingenuous, said Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Jim Cullen, a former member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. If a person has vital information and a bomb is going to explode, shouldn’t you use torture to extract that information, the question goes.

But Mr. Cullen said there are two types of prisoners: The first is most prisoners, who will say anything to avoid torture. The second is the ideologue who will never provide the information.

When asked about the argument for torture, suggested by some conservatives and supporters of the Bush policy, Mr. Otstott said the issue is “not cause and effect.”

There was a long period between the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he said. And that was during observation of the Geneva Convention, he said.

Lt. Gen. Harry Soyster, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said intelligence is usually not found through “by one all-knowing person,” but by a total collection of information.

In the end, if America’s enemies know the country disregards basic human values, then the nation’s values also fail, the men said. They also said that soldiers in the field must know that torture is not acceptable, and cited a letter from the military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, that stated torture is unacceptable.

“What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight, however, is how we behave,” Mr. Petraeus wrote in May.