Email this page to friends RSS feed About the Author Joseph L. Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and a nationally syndicated columnist. One of America's preeminent war correspondents, with more than four decades as a reporter and writer, he recently concluded an assignment as a special consultant to Gen. Colin Powell at the State Department. Galloway, a native of Refugio, Texas, spent 22 years as a foreign and war correspondent and bureau chief for United Press International, and nearly 20 years as a senior editor and senior writer for U.S. News & World Report magazine. His overseas postings include tours in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Singapore and three years as UPI bureau chief in Moscow in the former Soviet Union. During the course of 15 years of foreign postings Galloway served four tours as a war correspondent in Vietnam and also covered the 1971 India-Pakistan War and half a dozen other combat operations. In 1990-1991 Galloway covered Desert Shield/Desert Storm, riding with the 24th Infantry Division (Mech) in the assault into Iraq. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway "The finest combat correspondent of our generation -- a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend." Special Feature: "Discharged and Dishonored" This special report looks at the plight of our nation's veterans, and their battle to claim their benefits. Full Joe Galloway Bio Joe Galloway Archives Special Report: Read Joe Galloway's new column for Knight Ridder Newspapers on Echo Company. Sound Off! -- Have an opinion about this article? Visit the Joe Galloway discussion forum. Military Opinions Index Your Two Cents Submit your stories, news items, or a benefits update -- and help Military.com bring the best, most important stories to your fellow servicemembers, veterans, and family members. Contribute here

WASHINGTON - There is a quiet struggle going on in the nation's capital, and the stakes are the very soul of the Republican Party and this administration.

Three senior Republican senators wrote a small amendment into the Defense Appropriations bill this summer that outlaws cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of all detainees in American custody.

No one can call Sens. John Warner, R-Va., Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., soft on anything, much less terrorism. They constitute the Republican leadership of the Senate Armed Services Committee. All three have worn the uniform of our country. One, John McCain, spent long years in the hands of America's enemies as a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hilton.

The Bush White House is doing all that it can to stop this legislation from passing. Vice President Dick Cheney took the three senators to the wood shed and told them that their law would tie President Bush's hands in the war against terrorism. His bombast carried no weight with the three senators.

On the floor of the Senate, before everyone left on vacation, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., sounded the administration line: There is no need for this legislation because we are not dealing with prisoners of war but "terrorists."

John McCain stood up and responded that the debate was not "about who they are. It's about who we are." We are Americans, the senator said, and we hold ourselves to a higher standard than those who slaughter the innocent in Iraq or Afghanistan, or in London or on 9/11 here at home.

This debate has a special resonance as investigation after investigation into the outrages against prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and others into the mistreatment of detainees held in American custody at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, continue to focus all blame at the lowest possible level. This in spite of new testimony that strongly suggests that the blame, like cream, settles much nearer the top.

A few days ago the former warden of Abu Ghraib prison was offering testimony in the case of two of those low-level American military guards accused of using military dogs to terrorize Iraqi detainees. Maj. David DiNenna testified that this illegal use of dogs was suggested by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, then-commander of Guantanamo, who was sent to Iraq in August 2003 on an urgent mission to review and revise prisoner interrogation methods there.

In sworn testimony before Congress on May 19, 2004, Miller denied that he had ever recommended the use of dogs for interrogation at Abu Ghraib, or that they were ever used at Guantanamo. Army investigators last month reported that in fact while Gen. Miller commanded at Gitmo, an al-Qaeda suspect named Mohamed Qahtani was faced with snarling military dogs, forced to wear women's underwear on his head, and was led around by a dog leash attached to his chains. Sound familiar? Remember those nasty soldier photos that started all the ruckus early in 2004 at Abu Ghraib?

And lest it escape anyone's notice: Miller was not acting on his own initiative. The investigators found that the interrogation of Qahtani was conducted under rules approved by Secretary of Defense Donald L. Rumsfeld on Dec. 2, 2002.

Under protests from military lawyers, the Rumsfeld standard was revised in the spring of 2003. Yet the same practices would later be used at Abu Ghraib.

Maj. DiNenna in his testimony hit a raw nerve: "We understood that (Gen. Miller) was sent over by the secretary of defense."

The administration has stonewalled, bobbed and weaved and hidden from the truth with the acquiescence, at least until now, of a Republican-controlled Congress that has failed to follow up even when there is evidence people have been lying right to their faces.

The senators -- Warner, McCain and Graham -- have taken the first step toward shedding some light in the darker corners of the dungeon. Don't be surprised if that light finds a lot of people who rank much higher than specialist 4 or staff sergeant cowering in the corners.

Please repeat after the good senator who knows about prisons and the torture of helpless human beings:

This is not about who they are. This is about who we are. We are Americans and we hold ourselves to a higher standard of conduct. And, no, the end does not justify the means. Not now. Not ever, when the means include torturing prisoners.

Email this page to friendsRSS feed