RIGHTS-US: Anti-Torture Campaign Wins Influential Backers

By Jim Lobe | Inter Press Service, June 25, 2008

WASHINGTON,- On the eve of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, a bipartisan group of some 200 religious leaders and former top U.S. national security and military officers launched a campaign for a presidential order to outlaw torture and cruel and inhumane treatment of all detainees.

The campaign, consisting of a "Declaration of Principles" which members of the public are also invited to sign, has been endorsed by, among others, three former secretaries of state, including George Shultz, who served under former President Ronald Reagan; and three former secretaries of defence, including William Cohen, a Republican who served under former President Bill Clinton.

Sponsored by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, the Evangelicals for Human Rights, and the Minnesota-based Centre for Victims of Torture, the declaration has also been signed by 35 retired generals and admirals, as well as several retired senior counter-terrorist officers of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

"Though we come from a variety of backgrounds and walks of life, we agree that the use of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment against prisoners is immoral, unwise, and un-American," asserts the declaration, which stresses that such practices are also deeply counterproductive.

"In our effort to secure ourselves, we have resorted to tactics that do not work, which endanger U.S. personnel abroad, which discourage political, military and intelligence cooperation from our allies, and which ultimately do not enhance our security."

The declaration calls on the president to issue an executive order that "categorically rejects the authorisation or use (of) any methods of interrogation that we would not find acceptable if used against Americans, be they civilians or soldiers". It comes amid a welter of recent disclosures regarding the personal involvement of top Bush administration officials in authorising the use of what they have called "enhanced interrogation techniques", including waterboarding, but which virtually all international human rights groups have denounced as torture.

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