U.S. applies Geneva protection to Gitmo

2:24 p.m.

The Bush administration, called to account by Congress after the Supreme Court blocked military tribunals, said today all detainees at Guantanamo Bay and in U.S. military custody everywhere are entitled to protections under the Geneva Conventions.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said the policy, outlined in a new Defense Department memo, reflects the recent 5-3 Supreme Court decision blocking military tribunals set up by President Bush. That decision struck down the tribunals because they did not obey international law and had not been authorized by Congress.

The policy, described in a memo by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, appears to change the administration’s earlier insistence that the detainees are not prisoners of war and thus not subject to the Geneva protections.

The memo instructs recipients to ensure that all Defense Department policies, practices and directives comply with Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions governing the humane treatment of prisoners.

“You will ensure that all DOD personnel adhere to these standards,” Mr. England wrote.

The memo was first reported by the Financial Times, a British newspaper, and was distributed later to reporters at the Pentagon.

Word of the Bush administration’s new stance came as the Senate Judiciary Committee opened hearings today on the politically charged issue of how detainees should be tried.

“We’re not going to give the Department of Defense a blank check,” Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican and the committee chairman, told the hearing.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the committee’s top Democrat, said “kangaroo court procedures” must be changed and any military commissions “should not be set up as a sham. They should be consistent with a high standard of American justice, worth protecting.”

The Senate is expected to take up legislation addressing the legal rights of suspected terrorists after the August recess — timing that would push the issue squarely into the election season.

Guantanamo has been a flash point for both U.S. and international debate over the treatment of detainees without trial and over claims of torture, denied by U.S. officials. Even U.S. allies in the war on terrorism have criticized the facility and process.

The camp came under worldwide condemnation after it opened more than four years ago, when pictures showed prisoners kneeling, shackled and being herded into wire cages. It intensified with reports of heavy-handed interrogations, hunger strikes and suicides.

Mr. Snow insisted that all U.S. detainees have been treated humanely. Still, he said, “we want to get it right.”

“It’s not really a reversal of policy,” Mr. Snow asserted, calling the Supreme Court decision “complex.”

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