WASHINGTON -- Pentagon leaders on Thursday spoke up in
support of a top general who has told church audiences that the war on
terrorism is a battle with Satan and that Muslims worship idols.
Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin has made several speeches -- some in uniform --
at evangelical Christian churches in which he cast the war on terrorism in
religious terms. Boykin said of a 1993 battle with a Muslim militia leader in
Somalia: "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a
real God, and his was an idol."
Boykin did not respond Thursday to a request for comment.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday he
had not seen Boykin's comments, but he praised the three-star general, who is
the Pentagon's deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence.
"He is an officer that has an outstanding record in the United States
armed forces," Rumsfeld said at a news
conference.
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he had spoken
in uniform at prayer breakfasts, adding he did not think Boykin broke any
military rules by giving talks at churches.
"There is a very wide gray area on what the rules permit," Myers
said. "At first blush, it doesn't look like any rules were broken."
A Republican senator visiting the Pentagon Thursday was more critical.
Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee of Rhode Island said he had not been aware of Boykin's
statements as reported in the news media, then added, "If that's accurate,
to me it's deplorable."
A Muslim civil rights group on Thursday called for Boykin to be reassigned.
"Putting a man with such extremist views in a critical policy-making
position sends entirely the wrong message to a Muslim world that is already
skeptical about America's motives and intentions," said Nihad Awad, executive director of
the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Awad's statement noted that a verse in the Quran says Muslims believe in the same God as Jews and
Christians.
Boykin's church speeches, first reported by NBC News and the Los Angeles Times,
cast the war on terrorism as a religious battle between Christians and the
forces of evil.
Appearing in dress uniform before a religious group in Oregon in June, Boykin
said Islamic extremists hate the United States "because we're a Christian
nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian. ... And the
enemy is a guy named Satan."
Rumsfeld on Thursday repeated the Bush administration
position that the war on terrorism is not a war against Islam but against
people "who have tried to hijack a religion."
The defense secretary said he could not prevent military officials from making
controversial statements.
"We're a free people. And that's the wonderful thing about our
country," Rumsfeld said. "I think that for
anyone to run around and think that that can be managed and controlled is
probably wrong. Saddam Hussein could do it pretty well, because he'd go around
killing people if they said things he didn't like."