US: The Bush administration has admitted for the first time that detainees held at Guantánamo Bay and by the US military around the world are entitled to protection under the Geneva Conventions.
The policy U-turn comes two weeks after the US Supreme Court ruled that military tribunals the administration set up to try Guantánamo inmates were illegal because they breached international law and had not been authorised by Congress.
Washington has claimed since 2002 that detainees it classifies as "unlawful combatants" are not covered by the Geneva Conventions, international agreements that govern the treatment of prisoners of war.
The White House yesterday confirmed a Financial Times report that the Pentagon had issued a memo ordering that all detainees held by US forces should be treated in accordance with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.
"You will ensure that all DoD [ department of defense] personnel adhere to these standards. In this regard, I request that you promptly review all relevant directives, regulations, policies, practices and procedures under your purview to ensure that they comply with Common Article 3," deputy defence secretary Gordon England wrote in the memo dated last Friday.
The article prohibits violence against detainees, including "cruel treatment and torture" and bans "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment". The article also forbids the passing of sentences on detainees without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said the Pentagon memo did not represent a change of policy because the US had always treated detainees humanely. He acknowledged, however, that it was a response to last month's supreme court ruling. "We want to get it right," he said.
In a January 2002 memo outlining the legal framework for the "war on terror", attorney general Alberto Gonzales said the need to interrogate suspects quickly to prevent attacks rendered the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and "obsolete".
Last December, the White House fiercely resisted an attempt by Senator John McCain and others to ban the torture and ill-treatment of detainees by US government personnel anywhere in the world. When Congress passed the Bill and President George Bush signed it, he attached a "signing statement" indicating that he would interpret the torture ban selectively.
The Pentagon memo applies only to department of defence detainees and not to people held throughout the world by the CIA.
The policy reversal on the Geneva Conventions comes amid Senate hearings on whether to resurrect the military tribunals struck down by the supreme court. Senators will this week hear from senior military lawyers, many of whose retired colleagues have campaigned against the administration's legal treatment of detainees at Guantánamo.
Brig Gen David Brahms, formerly the top uniformed lawyer in the Marine Corps, said the officers should tell Congress not to allow military tribunals to continue with procedures the supreme court found unlawful.
"Our central theme in all this has always been our great concern about reciprocity. We don't want someone saying they've got our folks as captives and we're going to do to them exactly what you've done because we no longer hold any moral high ground," he said.
Senate judiciary committee chairman Arlen Specter has introduced a Bill that would authorise the administration to establish tribunals for detainees held at least 180 days at Guantánamo. The tribunals would include at least three military officers and a military judge, and their decisions could be appealed to the US Court of Military Appeals and then to the supreme court.
