December 29, 2007 (LPAC)--The CIA videotape scandal and the Bush Administration's refusal to brand waterboarding as "torture," has led at least one military lawyer to call it quits. Navy Lt. Cmdr Andrew Williams, of Gig Harbor, Washington, wrote, in a letter to his local newspaper, that the final straw for him was when Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmman, the chief legal advisor for the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions, refused to characterize waterboarding as torture, during Senate testimony on Dec. 11. During that testimony, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) asked him how the U.S. would respond if the Iranian government used waterboarding to torture a U.S. soldier into disclosing when the next U.S. military operation would occur. According to a transcript posted on thinkprogress.org, Hartmann responded "I am not prepared to answer that question."

Williams wrote that Hartmann's testimony "had just sold all the soldiers and sailors at risk of capture and subsequent torture down the river. Indeed, he would not rule out waterboarding as torture when done by the United States and indeed felt evidence obtained by such methods could be used in future trials." Williams notes that waterboarding dates back to the Spanish Inquisition, and that it was used by the Dutch East India Company in the 17th Century, the Nazi Gestapo and Japanese Kempeitai in World War II and the Khmer Rouge in the 1970's.