The Washington Post confirms that the Pentagon general counsel spent several hours “cajoling” top military lawyers into weakening their opposition to a White House-backed detainee treatment proposal — and at least one senator wants to hold a hearing on the incident:
[T]he [Judge Advocates General’s] letter was signed only after an extraordinary round of negotiations Wednesday between the judge advocates and William J. Haynes II, the Defense Department’s general counsel, according to Republican opponents of Bush’s proposal. The military lawyers refused to sign a letter of endorsement. But after hours of cajoling, they assented to write that they “do not object,” according to three Senate GOP sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were divulging private negotiations.[Sen. Lindsey] Graham [R-SC], a former Air Force judge advocate general, promised to summon the lawyers to a committee hearing and to ask for an explanation of the circumstances surrounding the letter.