London, Dec 4 : Retired US generals and admirals in a meeting with Vice President-Elect Joe Biden and senior members of President-Elect Barack Obama’s transition team, presented a long list of “things that need to be done and undone.”

They called on him to reverse the controversial interrogation, detention and rendition policies of the Bush Administration, The Telegraph reported.

General Joseph Hoar, a retired marine who headed the Central Command region from 1991 to 1994, headed the group.

The generals were motivated by concern that the use of water boarding, secret prisons, the abuse at Abu Ghraib and the detention without trial for six years of prisoners at Guantánamo had sullied the global reputation of America and its military.

The group, which represents 36 retired generals, with 80 service stars between them, has expressed its fear that excesses committed by US officials would remove the moral authority to demand US military personnel captured in the future are treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

Among their demands was an end to the CIA’s authority to use what the administration has called “enhanced interrogation methods” that exceed what is permitted for the military.

The techniques are said to include prolonged sleep deprivation, painful stress positions and water boarding, whereby a prisoner is dunked in running water and feels like he is drowning. The agency has said water boarding has not been used since 2003.

“Gradualism won’t do. It’s time for an abrupt change,” said Vice Admiral Lee Gunn, a former navy inspector general. “That abrupt change will send a signal to the world that America is back.”

Obama has denounced waterboarding and other forms of harsh questioning allowed by secret orders.

“Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them,” he said in October 2007. He has also vowed to close the Guantánamo Bay prison.

U S President George W. Bush has repeatedly denied condoning torture, but the denials have widely rung hollow among US and international audiences, The Telegraph reported. (ANI)