I’ve got a just-published piece at the Washington Independent reporting that Matthew Alexander — one of the interrogators who contributed to the hunt of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi without using torture — has been talking to the Senate Armed Services Committee about Gen. Stanley McChrystal, whose bid to become commander of the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan goes before the panel tomorrow morning. Not to overstate things, but Alexander’s involvement makes it more likely McChrystal will face questions about what he knew about detainee abuse committed by members of a task force under his old command that hunted Zarqawi in Iraq. In keeping with the spirit of blogging my own articles, I kind of thought the end of the piece contained some information I didn’t expect to come up with when I started reporting:

Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon intelligence analyst who co-wrote Human Rights Watch’s report on Task Force 6-26, lent personal support to McChrystal’s nomination. While Garlasco said, “we really don’t understand what [McChrystal's] involvement at Camp Nama was,” he added, “That doesn’t say whether or not he’s the right man for the job in Afghanistan. Personally, I think he may be.” Garlasco noted out the volume of civilian casualties in Afghanistan caused by Special Operations Forces and said that “put[ting] someone in charge who knows Special Operations Forces may be a good thing” in terms of “reining in” such mistakes.

Alexander didn’t go that far, but said that even if McChrystal did bear responsibility for detainee abuse, he would hardly be the only senior officer placed in such a situation. “Are they going to find a general officer now that hasn’t had detainee abuse [occur] under theircommand?” he said. “The answer is no, but there aren’t general officers who stood up and said no. There are not senior officers who ever stood up and said ‘I refuse to use enhanced interrogation techniques because it’s cruelty and it’s unlawful.” (An exception is Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus, who, as commander of U.S. forces in Iraq in 2007, instructed his troops not to abuse detainees.)

“We’re not going to find anybody who has a clean past,” Alexander said. “What I want to see now is someone who has reformed.”

 Alexander’s point may be somewhat overstated, but I think/hope it comes through clearly enough. Additionally, if you’re up this early tomorrow, I’ll be on WNYC’s The Takeaway tomorrow morning around 7:15 a.m. — it’s such a hard life I lead — talkin’ McChrystal.