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Otstott: Okay, we came in yesterday as a matter of fact and we are here now and will be her through Tuesday. I will personally not be, but I represent a group of retired flag officers from the army, navy, and air force, I guess and marines who are down here for the purpose of seeing as many of the presidential candidates as we can. Because we’re talking with them about how important it is that the next Commander in Chief understands that ending torture is essential to the military and to the nation we feel. So we’re down here to talk here about the torture and detainee abuse business with as many of the candidates as we can.

HOST: I also see that I receive something from the University of South Carolina that indicates that there’s a group of your group that will be participating in a… in an auditorium discussing it on Monday.

CO: Yep, on this particular trip. We’ve been to New Hampshire, I think it was in April, and we went out to Iowa last month and we’ve met with a total of eight of the candidates so far, representing both parties. We do not have any of candidates on our docket yet for this trip, but we have done a few editorial boards and they’re gonna have two events. One at the University of South Carolina on, I guess it’s, Monday and one at the Citadel on Tuesday. I unfortunately am not going to be able to participate in those, I’ve got to go back to Washington, DC or northern Virginia later today. But there will be a very sizeable group of our guys participating in those two events.

HOST: What’s the point that you’re going to make?

CO: Well, the point that we’re going to make is that torture basically does not produce good intelligence, it endangers our own troops. It degrades our long term national security and it is morally and ethically wrong. And we’re hoping to get that idea across and sharpen some of the candidates’ arguments about that and specifically we’d like to make sure that whoever becomes the next commander in chief understands that and that the military feels very strongly that way. At least those of us who are in the retired military community.

HOST: Let’s break down your argument a little bit. Ethically, what’s wrong with it?

CO: Ethically what’s wrong with it? It does not comport to the values of this country.

HOST: You also said that it endangers the troops. How is that?

CO: Well, we always felt like we had the moral high ground. That is, we abided by the Geneva conventions, our enemies could expect us to abide by the Geneva conventions. While that wasn’t a guarantee that our troops would be treated the same way, it was a guarantee that they could demand to be treated that way and they expected to be treated that way. And when you give that up and you go and produce the kind of images that have been produced at Abu Ghraib you essentially endanger yourself if you should fall into the hands of the enemy, more, we feel, than if you were on that moral high ground.

HOST: I could certainly understand that. Not only are there legitimate arguments against it, but there is also confusion over what is torture. What would you like to say about that?

CO: Well, we feel pretty strongly that, we feel very strongly that, the brand new army field manual which I think is now about eighteen months old that’s been revised about interrogation techniques should be the standard by which, not only the uniform community abides, but by which all United States agencies must abide. There is no problem with the uniformed agencies. The military is abiding by the new field manual. And it’s very explicit and clear about what torture is and what techniques are included in the prohibited list of activities, water boarding being one of those has received a lot of press recently. It is completely prohibited by the field manual. However, the presidential executive order that was signed on the 20^th of July authorizes enhanced techniques for the CIA and other agencies. We feel that it’s a bad thing because, quite often on the battle field you will find CIA elements and uniformed military elements working in fairly close proximity. And that brings confusion to the troops out there. And when troops are confused about what is authorized and what is allowed, many of them will take the most expedient method to try and extract information from people who fall under their custody. And we feel that there needs to be this one single simple rule, that everybody abides by, it’s the standard that it’s in the field manual, and if everybody went along with that we’d probably get a lot more credible intelligence and everybody would not have our country degraded by having photos published of bad activities by the few that want to take the easy way out.

HOST: So you’re telling me that basically, the CIA has a different standard that they can go by for torture techniques that they’re allowed to do, right now next to army personnel who are not supposed to be doing it, but there’s confusion there. Tell me what exactly we’re talking about. What kind of techniques.

CO: Well, I don’t know what kind of techniques, but you know very well that there’s been an argument about if water boarding is torture. And the president doesn’t say, he says we don’t torture, but he doesn’t say what torture consists of. We’re pretty sure that, well let’s just say, the technique of water boarding is specifically called out in the field manual as being a prohibited activity. Prohibited actions include water boarding, use of military working dogs, mock executions and a number of other things. The basic idea is that all prisoners and detainees should be treated humanely and when you detain somebody you don’t detain them in the name of the soldier who detains them or of the platoon, company, or battalion. You detain them in the name of the United States. As soon as someone falls into your custody, you represent the United States in your handling of that person. In my experience in Vietnam, I was a rifle company commander in Vietnam, we took charge of a lot of detainees. Some uniformed and some not uniformed. The idea that bad guys run around without uniforms on is certainly not new. We treated all of them under the Geneva Conventions as best we could, because we didn’t know exactly who they were or what they weren’t, we didn’t’ know the standard. That’s what the Geneva Convention supplied.

HOST: So we’re about out of time today, but as we wrap up, talking about water boarding. I’ve read a good bit about that over the years and I see where some people say there is nothing wrong with it and some people say that it can kill. Tell me about it from your experience.

CO: Fortunately I’ve never experienced it, but I know what it is and we have some folks in our group of retired general officers who have studied it and we have one psychiatrist who has looked into it and is familiar with the studies that have been done on it. Basically, they say it is simulated drowning, well the point is it really is drowning. They essentially cause a person to be drowned and then bring him back at the last minute. It is not something that you can simulate. It something that he (the prisoner) feels like is happening to him. There have been some comments made about the fact that well we do this to our own soldiers in training, when you are trying to tell them what techniques that they may run into if they get captured. But if I were in training and somebody was water-boarding I would know very well that he was not going to kill me, in training, right? So to say that because we’ve done it to ourselves in training, it’s OK to do it to them in real life, I think is just a cop-out and an anathema to our national values and ideas.

HOST: General it was a pleasure to talk with you. Is there anything else that you would like to add?

CO: No I think that will do it, I am hopeful that this will get this debate topic aired rationally and with some good information in the run up to the election in November and I hope that the next Commander in Chief feels the same way that we do about it.