White House mandates Army Field Manual for troops — because they’re ‘young’

February 15, 2008

In the midst of a very busy week on the Hill, the fight over the Army Field Manual has been one of the more frustrating.

To briefly recap, a spending bill to finance the nation’s intelligence efforts went to conference. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) added an important provision requiring one interrogation standard for the entire U.S. government. In an important policy shift, the Feinstein measure required the intelligence community to abide by the same interrogation standards articulated in the Army Field Manual, which, of course, prohibit torture.

Now, for John McCain, an alleged opponent of torture, this became an enormous hassle. He’d already said, publicly, that the techniques listed under the Army Field Manual are effective and legal, and there was no reason to go beyond them. But when push came to shove, he was against torture before he was for it.

The hassle for the White House, meanwhile, was different. Bush said he would veto funding for the nation’s intelligence agencies if the Army Field Manual mandate was included in the legislation. This led to a fairly straightforward question: if the torture-free Field Manual is good enough for U.S. troops interrogating detainees, why isn’t it good enough for intelligence officials interrogating detainees.

Dana Perino gave the White House spin a shot.

In [yesterday’s] White House press briefing, spokeswoman Dana Perino defended the veto decision by citing the age of CIA interrogators. She said that they are well-trained “professionals” with “an average age of 40.” U.S. soldiers, on the other hand, are too immature to be trusted, argued Perino. That’s why they need the Army Field Manual:

“This is done at the CIA, and it is done by professionals who are given hundreds of hours of training, who are — I think General Hayden said an average age of 40; who are being asked to do very hard work in order to protect Americans.

“The Army Field Manual is a perfectly appropriate document that is important for young GIs, some so young that they’re not even able to legally get a drink in the states where they’re from.”

This is the best spin the White House could come up with? U.S. troops are a bunch of kids, so we can mandate use of the Field Manual because we can’t otherwise trust them?

Let me get this straight. As far as the president is concerned, young GIs, many of whom can’t legally drink alcohol, can enlist for military service. They can use machine guns, drive tanks, fly fighters jets, etc. They can do three and four tours of duty in Iraq, putting their lives on the line every day. But they also need the restrictions of the Army Field Manual, because they’re just kids.

But, the White House says, when it comes to 40-something intelligence officials, anything goes. They’re more mature, so we have nothing to worry about.

I suspected the Bush gang would have trouble coming up with a coherent spin on the controversy, but I expected a little more than this.

And lest anyone think Perino just screwed up, giving reporters an odd line that hadn’t been thought through, keep in mind that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told the Senate Intelligence Committee the same thing.

Before the Senate Intelligence Committee today, Director of National Intellingence Mike McConnell echoed Perino’s comments, stating that the Army Field Manual is “designed for young and inexperienced” men and women in uniform.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) sharply replied that it’s unfair to “denigrate” the troops as if they’re a “bunch of 18 year olds running around” and “the Army Field Manual has to protect them from their naivete and their ignorance.”

All of this is terribly silly. The point has nothing to do with the ages of the troops, the CIA agents, or the private contractors. This is about basic interrogation standards, created by the military, and articulated in the Field Manual. Either those standards are effective and legal — as McCain used to believe before he sold out — or they’re not.

That the Bush gang is left patronizing U.S. troops to rationalize an awful policy tells us all we need to know about the merit of the White House’s position.

Here’s what the troops need to read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”

This book was written by Smedley Darlington Butler, a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.

  • I am waiting for the fall campaign where we see a nice collection of videos comparing what McCain says now vs. what he said in years past. His reversal on torture is just another on the list.

  • WTF? Eighteen year olds are old enough to kill people but just don’t have the maturity to torture people? Even teens can shoot or bomb someone but it takes a really mature person to beat someone with a hose or zap their testicles with 120 volts. Are 18 year-old too unsophisticated to know what really hurts? Would they take too much or too little pleasure in making someone think they’re dying?

    Thanks Dana for creating a new age demographic for folks to use in personal ads: “torture-something.” I hear it’s the new 30-something.

    Repubs were so pissed 10 years ago that “blowjob” entered the common lexicon. Talking about torture all the time is so much more civilized than that.

  • So the White House’s response is like a carnival height restriction? Must be this tall to torture.

  • 40 year old CIA agents do not normally kill people. 18 year old soldiers in Iraq do. They are young enough to kill. They carry nasty weapons, but they are too naive and immature to, let’s be clear, use torture when interrogating prisoners that they could easily naively and immaturely kill. I’d bet most teeneage soldiers do not interrogate at all, rather 40 year old majors do it. I also bet, manual restrictions or not, that a unit commander could give an order regarding what is and what is not appropriate for the young ‘uns.

    The administration is transparently stupid on this. If that is their best answer, they are mailing it in.

  • I would love to instate a “dunce cap” in the upcoming presidential debates between McJowels and anyone.

  • I guess that would make a lot of sense…if everyone in the military was under the age of 21. Last I checked, there were more than a few career soldiers and officers, and Bush’s gang of dunderheads just told these grizzled ol’ warhorses they don’t have the sense NOT to torture people the Very Smart Federal Agents do.

    There, feel better now, General?

  • Exactly how old is George Bush? Does anyone think he is mature enough to interrogate a prisoner maturely? Unfortunately unless Laura is there to read the manual to him, having one handy won’t help either.

  • maybe that’s the problem – all those 20-something Regent and Liberty grads Bush filled his admin with needed a US Constitution Field Manual to help them make decisions despite their intellectual and moral immaturity!

  • I’m just relieved it hasn’t occurred to them to make the 18-year olds share responsibility for their war crimes as a way of trying to alleviate the blame.

  • I thought we had these rules because we’re the good guys. So if soldiers are “too immature” , can someone explain to me why we supply them with guns? Dana, any comments?


  • The Eastern world, it is exploding
    Violence flaring, bullets loading
    You’re old enough to kill but not for voting
    You don’t believe in war so what’s that gun you’re toting?
    Even the Jordan River has bodies floating…
    But you tell me
    over and over and over again my friend
    You don’t believe we’re on the eve
    of destruction

    The more things change…

  • I was guarding PDF prisoners being interrogated in Panama back in 1989. The only person under the age of 30 in that room was me (I’d just turned 20 a few weeks earlier).

    Most intel/S-2 people I met who interrogated prisoners were usually older than 18-19.

    And I’m willing to believe that the average age of an Army interrogator is probably the same as a CIA interrogator.

    So I’m going to say, based on my limited experience, that this silly claim by the WH is bullshit.

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