Detainee Abuse Charges Feared Shield Sought From '96 War Crimes Act

[jbfam4]

Detainee Abuse Charges Feared
Shield Sought From '96 War Crimes Act

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/27/AR2006072701908_pf.html

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 28, 2006; A01



An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts.

Senior officials have responded by drafting legislation that would grant U.S. personnel involved in the terrorism fight new protections against prosecution for past violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. That law criminalizes violations of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in war and threatens the death penalty if U.S.-held detainees die in custody from abusive treatment.

In light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that the international Conventions apply to the treatment of detainees in the terrorism fight, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has spoken privately with Republican lawmakers about the need for such "protections," according to someone who heard his remarks last week.

Gonzales told the lawmakers that a shield is needed for actions taken by U.S. personnel under a 2002 presidential order, which the Supreme Court declared illegal, and under Justice Department legal opinions that have been withdrawn under fire, the source said. A spokeswoman for Gonzales, Tasia Scolinos, declined to comment on Gonzales's remarks.

The Justice Department's top legal adviser, Steven G. Bradbury, separately testified two weeks ago that Congress must give new "definition and certainty" to captors' risk of prosecution for coercive interrogations that fall short of outright torture.

[ShortnFiery]

1. If The Executive Branch leadership was The Moral Authority that they ...

constantly claim to be, instead of cowardly poseurs that they really are ... Bush-Co wouldn't have any legal worries, i.e., following the Geneva Convention on FIRM moral high ground. :grr:

[bullimiami]

2. not abuse. TORTURE.

I hate the mealymouthed language. they are LIARS and TORTURERS and MURDERERS and WAR CRIMINALS.
not misspeakers, abusers, accidental death dealers and defenders.


they want retroactive immunity for torturing people.

theyve said over and over 'we dont torture', obviously a lie. will noone ask if the dont torture why do they need immunity?