The US military chief expressed concern Monday that the interrogation techniques used against detainees during the previous administration, widely regarded as torture, could be turned against US troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I share Senator (John) McCain's concern that these techniques could be used against us for a considerable period of time," said Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner in Vietnam, has been a vocal opponent of its use.
Late last month, President Barack Obama made public Justice Department memos from 2002 and 2005 providing a legal rationale for the CIA's use of "enhanced" interrogation techniques widely denounced as torture, notably waterboarding, or near drowning.
Obama has left the door open to prosecutions of those who drafted and approved the interrogations.
At a news conference, Mullen said he had not seen the memos before their release. When pressed whether the techniques detailed in the memos amounted to torture, Mullen refrained from answering.
He said his focus was on the military's rules for interrogation as set out in the army's field manual for interrogation, which was designed to meet the Geneva Conventions' prohibition of coercive interrogation of prisoners.
"From that point, at no time have I ever supported torture and that has been very clear and remains so. I would leave it that," Mullen said.
