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For instance, while the President may have ruled out torture, the administration is currently reserving the right to treat some of its detainees with "cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment." The U.S. government is a signatory to an international treaty that bars such treatment, but the administration has maintained that such standards only apply to detainees held on U.S. soil. In fact, since April 16, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has explicitly authorized interrogation techniques that constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

The implications have not been theoretical or insignificant. More than 11,000 people are currently in U.S. detention in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, and 108 detainees have died in U.S. custody in Iraq or Afghanistan—with the Pentagon indicating that between 28 and 31 of the deaths are suspected or confirmed criminal homicides. Former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger's investigative panel acknowledged that interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay went beyond traditional Army rules and that such techniques "migrated to Afghanistan and Iraq, where they were neither limited nor safeguarded." According to the Pentagon's own findings, torture, murder, rape, and "systematic," "sadistic, wanton, and blatant abuse" has been perpetrated against U.S. detainees in Iraq.

Or what about "ghost detainees"? The CIA has been permitted to hold scores of people in undisclosed locations with no notification to their families, no access by the International Red Cross, or any other oversight of their treatment. Credible reports have emerged that such detainees have suffered torture and even death.

As the numbers of detainees mount, pressing events of national security and American traditions of decency have raised an urgent moral question: How shall we treat those who are detained by the U.S. government during this new era of war to protect our citizens from terror?

How ought the President, as a man of faith and moral conviction, think through the ethical questions posed by these practices? In shaping practical answers, the President should be able to draw upon the serious theological reflections of leaders from his religious base.

In my view, biblical principles of humanity's fallen nature suggest there is wisdom in applying the clear rules of the Army's own standing regulations on detainee interrogation and in eliminating the ethics-free zone of ghost detainees. Especially when a senior administration official from the intelligence services tells me bluntly about the tactics for fighting terror: "If it's not prohibited, it's compelled."

Perhaps others would come to a different conclusion. But in navigating this difficult moral question, our nation's religious leaders owe this President their best counsel in a public forum on the basis of text and tradition.

It would be good for the President to get their advice soon. The McCain amendment suggests straightforward answers to these questions. The amendments would require military interrogations to conform to the Army Field Manual, and make clear that cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment is never acceptable.

We do not serve this President by failing to engage the question. Surely, some partisan critics may seek to use these issues politically. But silence from the President's supporters is not helpful as he sorts through the legitimate questions of moral weight that have been placed upon his shoulders.

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October (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49