"In October, the Los Angeles Times reported that [Lieutenant General William (Jerry) Boykin], while giving Sunday-morning talks in uniform to church groups, had repeatedly equated the Muslim world with Satan. Last June, according to the paper, he told a congregation in Oregon that 'Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army.' Boykin praised President Bush as a 'man who prays in the Oval Office,' and declared that Bush was 'not elected' President but 'appointed by God.' The Muslim world hates America, he said, 'because we are a nation of believers.'
"There were calls in the press and from Congress for Boykin's dismissal, but [secretary of defense Donald] Rumsfeld made it clear that he wanted to keep his man in the job. Initially, he responded to the Times report by praising the General's 'outstanding record' and telling journalists that he had neither seen the text of Boykin's statements nor watched the videotape that had been made of one of his presentations. '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,' he said. 'We're a free people. And that's the wonderful thing about our country.' He added, with regard to the tape, 'I just simply can't comment on what he said, because I haven't seen it.' Four days later, Rumsfeld said that he had viewed the tape. 'It had a lot of very difficult-to-understand words with subtitles which I was not able to verify,' he said at a news conference, according to the official transcript. 'So I remain inexpert' -- the transcript notes that he 'chuckles' at that moment -- 'on precisely what he said.'"
Sources
Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 15 December, 2003, p. 50
