Terror suspects gain some rights

WASHINGTON — In a major reversal of a keystone policy in its war on terrorism, the Bush administration announced Tuesday that all detainees in U.S. military custody, including those at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are entitled to Geneva Convention protections that prohibit humiliating treatment and torture.

The change reflects the Pentagon's response to the Supreme Court's 5-3 decision last month that struck down the administration's makeshift formula for military tribunals at Guantanamo, declaring their procedures unconstitutional and a violation of Geneva Convention obligations.

The two-page Pentagon memo repudiates a core element of the legal foundation of President Bush's approach to dealing with terrorism. Bush and his legal advisers initially had said the Geneva Conventions didn't apply to the war on terrorism because it was a new type of conflict that demanded more aggressive action.

In a 2002 memo, then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales told Bush that this nontraditional war "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

Vice President Dick Cheney and White House spokesmen made clear in many public statements since 2002 that they didn't think that terrorism suspects deserved the rights that the Geneva Conventions granted to enemy soldiers. At the same time, Bush has said repeatedly that his administration is committed to complying with the Geneva Conventions, but he's also reserved the right to waive them if he sees fit as commander in chief.

The new Pentagon memo doesn't change captives' status as enemy combatants — not prisoners of war — nor does it suggest that practices will change at Guantanamo, the remote interrogation and detention outpost at a U.S. naval base in southeast Cuba where commanders defend the treatment of its 450 captives as humane.

In addition, the memo doesn't bind the CIA in its treatment of detainees, because the CIA isn't part of the Defense Department. The CIA reportedly operates a network of secret prisons around the world for terrorism suspects, and has handed over others to countries that are accused of using torture.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was one who suggested that the Pentagon policy didn't cover CIA activities, but said "that will have to be dealt with at a different time."

The new memo, signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, declared that Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions "applies as a matter of law to the conflict with al-Qaida." His memo doesn't, however, embrace all the terms of the Geneva Conventions.