Utah expert lobbies for anti-torture amendment
Irvine has been best known in Utah as a former state legislator, Public Service Commission member and chief of staff for former Utah congressman Merrill Cook. But for 18 years, serving in the Army Reserve, he also taught U.S. soldiers how to interrogate the enemy.
Irvine taught that force, mental torture and even insults aren't condoned.
"There were no secret classes at midnight where people taught soldiers to beat the crap out of somebody without leaving any marks," he says.
His version of interrogation was by the book, in this case the "Army Field Manual for Intelligence Interrogations," in compliance with the Geneva Convention.
That's why he was "dumbfounded," he says, when the first reports of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison surfaced last year. As reports of other abuse have circulated, including stories of CIA-run secret prisons in Romania and Egypt, Irvine has come to expect the worst — and his outrage has deepened.
Last summer, Irvine was one of 11 high-ranking retired military officers who signed a letter supporting the anti-torture amendment proposed by Arizona's Sen. John McCain and attached to the 2006 Department of Defense authorization bill. Since then the Senate passed the amendment in a 90-9 vote, and the number of retired flag officers who publicly support the amendment has grown to 35, Irvine says.
The group met in Washington last week with House staff members to urge passage of the anti-torture language, with no exceptions for CIA operatives or private contractors. President Bush has said he will veto such provisions.
On Friday, 30 retired CIA and other professional intelligence experts also announced their support for the amendment, noting that "those who press for the 'flexibility' to abuse prisoners have been willing to forsake both effectiveness and our values as a nation on the misguided belief that abusive treatment will produce vital intelligence."
Interrogation, they wrote, "requires research, native language skills, and developing sustained relationships with the targets of interrogation. Abusive tactics make developing these relationships more difficult."
Amen, says Irvine, who trained between 700 and 800 soldiers in military law and prisoner interrogation as a faculty member of the Sixth Army Intelligence School. In his 40-year Army Reserve career he never actually interrogated any war prisoners himself, but he is clear about what he believes is moral and effective.
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