Date Posted: Thursday, October 16, 2003

WASHINGTON, Oct 16 (MASNET & News Agencies) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended a U.S. general who portrayed the “war on terrorism” in talks to church groups as a spiritual battle by Christianity against Satan, saying that Muslims worship an idol.

The religiously charged remarks by Lieutenant General William Boykin, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, appeared to run counter to the U.S. administration's longstanding insistence that the war on terrorism is not directed against Islam, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Rumsfeld said he had not read or seen the general's statements, which were reported by the Los Angeles Times Thursday. NBC aired videotape clips of some of them. But he refused to say whether he would even look into them.

"Whatever he said was in a private capacity," he told reporters. "There are a lot of things that are said by people in the military, or in civilian life, or in the Congress, or in the executive branch, that are their views. That's the way we live. We are a free people."

"For anyone to run around and think that can be managed and controlled is probably wrong," he said.

Air Force General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there was a large gray area in the rules about what was out of bounds while in uniform.

"At first blush, it doesn't look like any rules were broken," he said.

Boykin, a highly decorated veteran of U.S. special operations, was elevated in June to a highly secretive new Pentagon unit with a mandate to reinvigorate the search for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar - both of whom have eluded U.S. forces in Afghanistan - by combining intelligence with special operations to hunt down “high-value” terrorist targets.

The general was a commando in the supersecret Delta Force and took part in the failed hostage rescue mission in Iran, the search for drug lord Pablo Escobar in Colombia and the 1993 raid in Mogadishu that ended in the deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers.

Boykin has a history of outspoken and divisive views on religion - Islam in particular, reports NBC News.

The Times said the day after he was nominated for a third star and to the position of deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Boykin was speaking from the pulpit of the Good Shepherd Community Church in Sandy, Oregon, in dress uniform.

Boykin said Islamic extremists hate the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christians. ... And the enemy is a guy named Satan."

After displaying slides of Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, the Times said the general asked, "Why do they hate us?"

"The answer to that is because we're a Christian nation. We are hated because we are a nation of believers," he said, according to the Times.

An evangelical Christian, Boykin has appeared in uniform while delivering his message of a religious war to church groups, the Times said a month-long investigation found.

He was quoted as telling an Oregon congregation that President George W. Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters: "He was appointed by God," he said.

He routinely tells audiences that God, not the voters, chose Bush: “Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.”

In June 2002, he spoke to the congregation at the First Baptist Church of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, showing them a photograph he said he had taken of Mogadishu soon after the raid that contained a strange dark mark, the Times said.

"Ladies and gentleman, this is your enemy," Boykin said. "It is the principalities of darkness. It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy."

In a speech at a Daytona, Florida, church in January, Boykin recalled how a top lieutenant of Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid had laughed on CNN after a raid by Delta Force commandos had missed by a few seconds, saying they would never get him because Allah would protect him.

"Well, you know what?" Boykin was quoted as saying. "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol." He said the Aidid lieutenant was later captured.

Asked about this Thursday, the Associated Press (AP) reports Rumsfeld told reporters he had not seen the videos and did not know the "full context" of Boykin's remarks. But the secretary did say, "We do know that he is an officer that has an outstanding record in the United States armed forces."

Senators who appeared before reporters at the Pentagon Thursday on another matter were asked about the reports. Senator Lincoln D. Chafee (R-RI) said he had not been aware of Boykin's views as described by the Times, but added, "If that's accurate, to me it's deplorable."

The Times said his public remarks also include statements that Muslims who engage in terrorism are not representative of Islam, echoing the administration's position.

In a phone conversation, Boykin told NBC he respects Muslims and believes those who attacked the U.S. are “not true followers of Islam.”