I think things are really turning on this.

That's why the McCain amendment is important, and that's why this language they're floating now would gut it.

This is what got us into problems in the first place.

He's tried very hard. But everybody recognized that he was having to go up against people who both outrank him and were deeply involved setting the policies that he was challenging.

The House and Senate have now spoken loud and clear, with a single message ? the United States will not permit cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

For three years now, the administration has been sending the message that cruel and inhuman treatment is OK. Now the McCain amendment is going to wipe all of that away. It reminds everybody who's on the front line that the rules are the rules, and if somebody tells you they don't apply, don't listen to them.

The battle about what that provision means has only just begun.

I just wish we could get through to people that picking up a Salvadoran general in Miami and telling him he has to retire in Costa Rica is not a punishment. Yeah, you're evil, but you can go be evil somewhere else.

Our findings reveal a picture of military discipline from which the doctrine of command responsibility is completely absent.