GONZALES.CBS 01/04/05 8:40 PM-DLR   1:46
The Osgood File.  Sponsored by ________.  This is Dave Ross.  On the CBS Radio Network.
Look who's expressing concern about the President's nominee for Attorney General...
More after this from Charlie:
(SPOT)
On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee takes up the nomination of former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales to be attorney general.
He has a compelling story:  second generation Mexican American, gets a law degree from Harvard; poised to be the country's first hispanic attorney general.  
But a group of retired military officers is adamant that he be closely questioned on a particular memo he wrote.
It was Gonzales who wrote a memo in 2002 suggesting the Geneva conventions prohibiting torture did not apply to so-called "enemy combatants."  Now these represent the rules that nations are expected to follow EVEN in time of war.  They are designed to protect soldiers captured in the course of doing their duty - on the grounds that war or not, they are human beings with God-given rights.
Yet the Gonzalez memo describes parts of the Geneva Conventions as "obsolete" and "quaint,"  and argues that enemy prisoners captured in Afghanistan could plausibly be exempted from them during interrogations.   The memo has been cited as clearing the way for the abuses at AbuGhraib in Iraq.
And so people like Army Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs under President Clinton, and Retired Marine Corps General Joseph Hoar, want senators to press Gonzales about this.
Gonzales' backers dismissed the critics as sour grapes Kerry supporters.
But I'm betting that plenty of military people will be tuned in whether they supported Kerry or not.
When that memo first came out, I heard from veterans whose concerns had nothing to do with politics.   There concern was ... if the US isn't going to follow the Geneva convention - then why would anyone else?   
Those clauses may be obsolete and quaint to some people - but they're a lot more than that to a soldier in the hands of an enemy.   The Osgood File.  Dave Ross.  On the CBS Radio Network.
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