VA 2006 Senate Debate: on Homeland Security

George Allen: Continue terrorist interrogations but without torture

ALLEN: I’m going to make a determination once I get some more facts. The two key points I’m going to look at [are], number one, these interrogations have helped protect American lives and not just here at home but also in the battlefield. Secondly, the Geneva Convention is very important, and I don’t want to set a precedent that we change the Geneva Convention [because I’m concerned] if one of our troops or one of our CIA agents is caught or captured. Now, the key in all of this is I don’t want to stop these interrogations. I’m not for torture, I’m not for waterboarding, but some of these techniques have been very helpful to us, whether they are sleep deprivation, or whether there’s loud music. And I need to be absolutely certain that what the interrogators are doing now-which is completely fine as far as I’m concerned, protecting Americans-will not be harmed by the proposal.

George Allen: Wrong to bar women from VMI; did it to be gentlemanly

“If [Virginia Military Institute] admitted women, it wouldn’t be the VMI that we’ve known for 154 years. You just don’t treat women the way you treat fellow cadets. If you did, it would be ungentlemanly, it would be improper.”

ALLEN: The regiment at VMI -the curriculum and the training would be ungentlemanly to treat women the way that they were doing it. At Virginia Tech, we had women and opportunities for women to get military training in a co-ed approach. VMI and their board for many years felt that they should continue the way that they had in the past.

Q: But has women at VMI worked?

ALLEN: Yes, it has.

Q: So you were wrong?

ALLEN: We were wrong. The Supreme Court said we were wrong. We complied with that decision. What I said as governor, is I’m going to deplore anybody who demeans women.

James Webb: No draft; 5% tax break to recruit soldiers

WEBB: I don’t believe that right now this country needs a draft. I’ve proposed a 5% tax break for all people who serve honorably in the military.

Q: How much would that cost?

WEBB: If you go to the typical income of a veteran, it’s about $30-something-thousand, so it’s not a high-cost program. And it’s targeted to people who’ve served. And one of the things that that would do is to bring more people from across class lines into the military.

James Webb: Continue terrorist interrogations within Geneva Accord rules

WEBB: I’m with Senator Warner on this, and I think in terms of what Colin Powell is saying, that’s a very important piece of how we deal long-term with the Islamic world particularly, that we have to stay on the moral high ground.

Q: But you would not end interrogation?

WEBB: No. Obviously we have to protect ourselves, and we have to be able to get information out. But if you abrogate the standards of the Geneva Accords, you give other nations who have less fair standards than ours the moral justification to do that. We saw that during the Vietnam War when the North Vietnamese refused to call our prisoners of war “prisoners of war.” They simply called them war criminals, and they didn’t respect the Geneva Accords.

James Webb: Wrote “Women Can’t Fight” in ‘79; now OK with military women

“No benefit can come to anyone from women serving in combat. I have never met a woman, including the dozens of female midshipmen I encountered during my recent semester as a professor at the Naval Academy, whom I would trust to provide those men with combat leadership.”

WEBB: This article was written from the perspective of a Marine company commander, and was way too narrowly based.

Q: But was it wrong?

WEBB: I don’t think it was wrong to participate in the debate at that time. It’s been 27 years, and I am fully comfortable with the roles of women in the military today. When I was secretary of the Navy, I opened up more operational billets to women than any other secretary of the Navy in history.

Q: Bottom line, do you now believe that women can, in fact, provide men with combat leadership?

WEBB: Absolutely.

James Webb: Decisions about women in military should be made militarily

WEBB: Well, I do regret that. There’s many pieces in this article that if I were a more mature individual, I wouldn’t have written, as I’ve tried to show by my conduct when I had positions in government.

You followed up with an article in 1997, [entitled] “The War on the Military Culture.” You write:

“Political and military leaders must have the courage to ask clearly in what areas our current policies toward women in the military are hurting, rather than helping, the task of defending the US.“

WEBB: I was pointing out in that article where the political process interferes with the military being able to make its own decision on those matters. And one of the things that I did when I was secretary of the Navy was I turned this over to the military side.