Retired US General on Alberto Gonzales:
"He Has Endangered Our Soldiers"
from: Democracy Now Wednesday, January 5th, 2005
for mp3 or Video CD go here:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/05/152208
As the Senate prepares for confirmation hearings on White House
Counsel Alberto Gonzales as the next attorney general, we speak
with retired Brigadier General James Cullen - one of 12 retired
Admirals and Generals who are calling on the Judiciary Committee
to scrutinize Gonzales' role in setting the stage for U.S. torture
of detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin hearings tomorrow on the
confirmation of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales as the next
attorney general of the United States.
Central to the hearings will be Gonzales" role in paving the legal
groundwork that led to the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo Bay. In a highly controversial January 2002 memo, Gonzales
wrote that the war on terror "renders obsolete [the Geneva
Convention's] strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners
and renders quaint some of its provisions."
In August 2002, a Justice Department memo sought by Gonzales
contended the president has "commander-in-chief authority" to order
torture and proposed potential legal defenses for U.S. officials who
may be accused of torture. The memo also argued that physical abuse
of prisoners was torture only if it was "of an intensity akin
to...serious physical injury such as death or organ failure," and
mental abuse was torture only if it caused "lasting psychological
harm."
The confirmation hearings have become even more controversial in the
wake of a new Justice Department memo released just last Thursday
revising the August 2002 memo to significantly broaden the definition
of torture for which individuals could be prosecuted.
The hearings may also become more contentious because the White House
has refused to provide copies of the memos to the Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Democrat Richard Durbin of Illinois told the Associated Press
"We go into the hearing with some knowledge of what has
occurred...but without the hard evidence that will either exonerate
or implicate Judge Gonzales in this policy."
On Monday, a dozen retired generals and admirals, including former
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili
released a letter to the Judiciary Committee noting that Gonzales"
recommendations "fostered greater animosity toward the United States,
undermined our intelligence gathering efforts, and added to the risks
facing our troops serving around the world."
Brigadier General James Cullen (Ret), among 12 retired Admirals and
Generals who yesterday released a letter to the Senate Judiciary
Committee urging Members to closely examine Attorney General nominee
Alberto Gonzales role in setting U.S. policy on torture. Mr. Gonzales
confirmation hearings begin January 6, 2005. Cullen last served as
the Chief Judge of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals. He
currently practices law in New York City.
**********************
AMY GOODMAN: One of those who signed that letter is Brigadier General
James Cullen. He joins us in the studio now. Welcome to Democracy
Now!
JAMES CULLEN: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the origins of this letter, quite
unusual. A dozen retired admirals and generals writing this letter to
the Judiciary Committee challenging the confirmation of Alberto
Gonzales as Attorney General.
JAMES CULLEN: I would describe the letter as almost unprecedented in
terms of the number of retired generals and admirals who have joined
in it, and also the level of concern. I think it arises from all of
our shared concern about the impact of Mr. Gonzales's memo and the
progeny of other memos that it spawned, including the one from Mr.
Bybee, which you just quoted from. The impact on our soldiers, both
in present conflicts and in future conflicts. For us, Mr. Gonzales's
position wrote the brief for the enemy on justifying maltreatment of
American servicemen and servicewomen. Even in World War II, when the
threat to America was far greater, and before we even had the present
form of the Geneva Conventions, we abided by common international
understanding on the proper custody and care of prisoners of war.
General Eisenhower was adamant about that. He did not want to give
the Nazis, who were hardly nice fellows, an excuse to abuse our
prisoners. In general, it worked. We took care of the German and
Italian prisoners of war, and generally, the Germans took care of
the American prisoners of war appropriately. The current philosophy
of Mr. Gonzales and the political lawyers within the administration
is that somehow we are involved in a new war that justifies a
departure from these past practices. We reject that kind of
analysis.
AMY GOODMAN: Why?
JAMES CULLEN: The current conflict is one of insurgency. This is not
the first insurgency we have fought. Anyone who managed to stay awake
during a high school history class can recount any number of
insurgencies that we have fought. Even during our own Civil War, we
adopted and followed the Lieber Code, a professor at Columbia wrote
out some rules of war, and it was followed by the Union armies and
later on by the Confederate armies. So, there has always been a
recognition that there are some rules that are inviolate. We bring
that forward. The threats to our nation today, while serious and
while people were killed, and I was just three blocks from the World
Trade Center when the planes struck, I saw firsthand the devastation,
nevertheless, in the world view, in our view of history, the threat
to today, while very serious, doesn't outweigh the threat in World
War II nor indeed in our own Civil War or in other conflicts that
we’ve been in. The need to afford protection to prisoners of war,
the need to follow norms of international law in figuring out who is
who among those people detained, categorizing them and treating them
in accordance with international law remains as valid and as serious
today as it has in bygone conflicts.
AMY GOODMAN: We're speaking to retired Brigadier General Jim Cullen
who joined with other retired generals and admirals in an
unprecedented letter to the Judiciary Committee challenging the
confirmation of Alberto Gonzales. We'll be back with him in just
a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: The guest is Brigadier General James Cullen, who joined
with other retired generals and admirals to write a letter to the
Judiciary Committee, which will begin hearings on Thursday on Alberto
Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States, challenging that
nomination, and confirmation. Vanity Fair, in the latest issue, has a
piece where they say that the sexual and physical abuse of Iraqi
prisoners continued at least three months after the Abu Ghraib
scandal broke. Your response.
JAMES CULLEN: Well, there certainly have been reports, verifiable
reports, that the wrongdoing continued. It is our contention that
these kind of events don't happen. They're just not isolated events.
In the military, people don't go off on their own and do these kind
of things. You will have individual acts of wrongdoing just like you
do in the civilian community, but once you begin to see patterns,
and particularly patterns of continuing misconduct, somebody believes
that they have authority to do that. Now, even though Mr. Gonzales,
I’m sure, never felt he was authorizing the wrongdoing to the extent
that it has been revealed, at that level, you must believe at a
policy level, when you put in motion, and you put out there memos of
the type that he both authored and vided, you have to bear the
harvest of what you are sowing.
AMY GOODMAN: The Washington Post today and the New York Times have
major pieces. The New York Times saying that Alberto Gonzales
intervened directly with Justice Department lawyers in 2002 to obtain
a legal ruling on the extent of the president's authority to permit
extreme interrogation practices in the name of national security. The
Washington Post saying - In March 2002, U.S. elation at the capture of
the Al Qaeda operations chief Abu Zubaida was turning to frustration
as he refused to bend to CIA interrogation. But agency officers
determined to wring more from Abu Zubaida through threatening
interrogations worried about violating international prescriptions
on torture, they asked for a legal review - the first ever by the
government - on how much pain and suffering a U.S. intelligence
officer could inflict on a prisoner without violating a 1994 law
that imposes severe penalties including life imprisonment and
execution on convicted torturers. The Justice Department's office
of legal counsel took up the task, and at least twice during the
drafting, top administration officials were briefed on the results.
White House counsel Alberto Gonzales chaired the meetings on the
issue, which included detailed descriptions of the interrogation
techniques. Such as - water boarding,- a technique intended to make
detainees feel as if they are drowning. He raised no objections,
and without consulting military and State Department experts in
the laws of torture and war, approved an August 2002 memo that
gave CIA interrogators the legal blessings they sought.
JAMES CULLEN: Well, I’d like to pick up on one point in particular.
At no time within my knowledge did Mr. Gonzales or the other
political lawyers within the administration, who were concerned
with these matters, approach the judge advocate generals of the
different services. They knew what the answers were going to be.
The judge advocates would never approve these kinds of either
departures from the Geneva Convention or carrying out torture to
this extent.
AMY GOODMAN: You're talking about lawyers within the military.
JAMES CULLEN: Military lawyers. Exactly. The uniformed lawyers in
contrast to the political lawyers. The general counsel, for example
of the Department of Defense never took objection, either, as Mr.
Gonzales took no objection. They didn't put on the brakes when they
needed to.
AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned Bybee, the attorney within the Justice
Department. What were the memos he was responsible for? He has since
been elevated in the Bush administration to be a judge. Now, Alberto
Gonzales, also directly involved with these memos, has been nominated,
so has been elevated under the Bush administration. They want him to
be Attorney General.
JAMES CULLEN: Well, I just think that -- and I might add that Mr.
Haynes, the Department of Defense general counsel, apparently is also
being nominated to be a judge, as a reward for going along with this
whole pattern of conduct that's going to cause us so much problems in
the past. I point out that while we are engaged with a very dangerous
enemy, nevertheless, it is the enemy. And I look back in history, how
many of our prisoners refused to give up information to their captors.
They acted honorably under terrible conditions in Vietnam, Korea and
even in World War II. Now, are we going to write as I think we have,
a brief for the enemy to say, well, you justified torturing people,
now the same rule applies to us. The old golden rule of torture. I
think this is the real tragedy of what the policy of Mr. Gonzales has
spawned.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think that the beheadings in Iraq, where those
that were beheaded, people like Nick Berg, were put in orange
jumpsuits before they were beheaded as people held by the U.S. are
held in orange jumpsuits, are a reaction to what has come out around
the torture?
JAMES CULLEN: Well, It's very hard for me to speculate about what is
in the minds of the crazies, and certainly, those kinds of acts - we
have never beheaded anybody. We have never carried out acts of that
nature, so we're dealing with people who are themselves operating
outside of the rule of law. Now, if they fall into our hands, the
people who have committed heinous acts of that nature, we can deal
with them appropriately within the military criminal justice system.
But unfortunately, Mr. Gonzales and others seem not to care too much
about the rule of law.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you have faith that the Democrats in the Senate
Judiciary Committee will ask the kinds of questions you are in your
letter, do you believe the Geneva Conventions apply to all of these
captured by the U.S. authorities in Afghanistan and Iraq, could you
support affording the international committee and the Red Cross
access to all detainees in custody, do you believe that the CIA and
other government intelligence agencies are bound by same laws and
restrictions that constrain the operations of the U.S. armed Forces,
et cetera, the questions that you raise in this letter?
JAMES CULLEN: Unfortunately, I’m not confident. I read a statement by
Mr. Schumer the other day that suggested that it’s a much lower
standard for the appointment of an Attorney General, and that the
president really ought to be given leeway in whoever is appointed as
Attorney General, even though the Attorney General is the chief law
enforcement officer of this country, and one would hope that a person
given such enormous responsibility has good judgment. But Senator
Schumer seems not to be that deeply concerned about it, and I regret
that, even though I have respect for him and for the other senators,
including Senator Specter. I would hope they get into these issues.
AMY GOODMAN: Where do you go from here? Will you be at the hearings?
JAMES CULLEN: No, I will not be, but one of the other signatories to
the letter, Admiral John Hudson, who is the retired Navy judge
advocate general, I believe, will be testifying.
AMY GOODMAN: So, do you believe that Alberto Gonzales has endangered
U.S. troops?
JAMES CULLEN: I think that he has. Not intentionally, but certainly
the policy that he has put in place has endangered our soldiers.
AMY GOODMAN: Brigadier General Jim Cullen, joining us in our studio.
Signed a letter along with a dozen retired admirals and generals.
Brigadier General David Brahms, Brigadier General James Cullen in our
studio, Brigadier General Evelyn Foote, Lieutenant General Robert
Gard, Vice Admiral Lee Gunn, Admiral Don Guter, General Joseph Hoar,
Rear Admiral John Hutson, Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy, General
Merrill McPeak, as well as General John Shalikashvili, the former
chair of the joint chiefs of staff, and others, signing the letter
that has been sent to the Judiciary Committee, challenging the
confirmation of Gonzales as Attorney General. Thank you for being
with us.
JAMES CULLEN: Thank you.
for mp3 or Video CD go here:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/05/152208
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