U.S. Disputed Protected Status of Iraq Inmates

[MrBenchley]

And remember, it's only a handful of non-coms who are responsible....in a pig's eye.

"Presented last fall with a detailed catalog of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, the American military responded on Dec. 24 with a confidential letter asserting that many Iraqi prisoners were not entitled to the full protections of the Geneva Conventions.
The letter, drafted by military lawyers and signed by Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, emphasized the "military necessity" of isolating some inmates at the prison for interrogation because of their "significant intelligence value," and said that prisoners held as security risks could legally be treated differently from prisoners of war or ordinary criminals.
But the military insisted that there were "clear procedures governing interrogation to ensure approaches do not amount to inhumane treatment."
In recent public statements, Bush administration officials have said that the Geneva Conventions were "fully applicable" in Iraq. That has put American-run prisons in Iraq in a different category from those in Afghanistan and in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban have been declared unlawful combatants not eligible for protection. However, the Dec. 24 letter appears to undermine administration assertions of the conventions' broad application in Iraq. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/international/middleeast/23IRAQ.html?hp

[bemildred]

1. "Well, at least we're not as bad as Saddam".

:puke:

[UpInArms]

2. and we haven't built the gas chambers orovens

(yet) /sarcasm

I thought that *Co said there were no "torture chambers" since SH left?

[saigon68]

3. THE MILITARY IS RIDDLED WITH WAR CRIMINALS

THUGS, HOODLUMS, MURDERERS and BULLIES.

[hedda_foil]

4. Hideous. And the NYT has the whole damning document!

Leak after leak after leak.

There's so much in this article it's impossible to fully take it in in just one reading. But this stood out to me:

<snip>

Professor Silliman, a former Air Force lawyer who heads the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke, said the response of authorities at Abu Ghraib to the Red Cross appeared to be part of a larger pattern in which the administration and the military devote great energy to find ways to avoid the jurisdiction of the Geneva Conventions.

"If you look at this in connection with other things that are coming out, it doesn't seem like a snap decision but part of an across-the-board pattern of decision-making to create another category outside the conventions."

<snip>