Squabbling over status of detainees

The secretary of state has said they should be covered by the Geneva Convention. The White House and Justice Department disagree.

Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 27, 2002

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is locked in an internal dispute over the legal status of al-Qaida and Taliban detainees being held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, according to several published reports.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has urged President Bush to declare that the 158 captives at Guantanamo Bay are covered by the 1949 Geneva Convention, which governs how prisoners of war are to be treated, according to reports by the New York Times, Knight Ridder and the Associated Press. The reports cited unnamed senior State Department officials.

Powell's position puts him and the State Department at odds with the White House and the Justice Department. To date, the Bush administration has treated the captives as "unlawful combatants" who do not qualify for the convention's protection.

"The consensus of opinion is that the Taliban and al-Qaida fighters are not POWs," Sean McCormick, spokesman for the National Security Council, said Saturday.

"There are still some issues being debated among the lawyers," he said. "It really shouldn't surprise anyone that we are working through these complex issues. This is a different kind of war. It is hard to know how to apply existing international norms to this new kind of conflict.

"The real world point is that they (the detainees) have been, are, and will be treated humanely and consistent with the principles of the Geneva Convention," McCormick said.

Human rights groups and some European officials have criticized the detainees' living conditions at Guantanamo Bay. The detainees are being held in open-air cages and have been shackled at times.

Administration officials have said they are being treated humanely.

As explained by U.S. officials, the dispute in Washington is over international law, not over the prisoners' treatment. It echoes earlier, heated debates among Bush's top advisers over the extent to which the United States should follow international agreements or, alternately, free itself from such restraints.

In an unusual challenge to a presidential decision, Powell and his lawyers at the State Department had urged Bush to affirm that the international law of war governs the United States' treatment of all captives of the Taliban military and al-Qaida terrorist network. The New York Times reported that Powell argued they should be considered prisoners of war until each is brought before a military board for an individual hearing.

Powell does not believe the detainees qualify as prisoners of war, according to the reports. But he argues that declaring they are covered by the Geneva Convention would bolster international support for U.S. action in Bush's war on terrorism and protect Americans held overseas.

Bush has decided that the detainees are not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions -- which rule out trial by military tribunal -- because they are terrorists, not uniformed members of a national military.

White House counsel Alberto Gonzales said last week that the detainees' legal status would not change.

"We have determined that they are not POWs, and there is no doubt about their status," Gonzales said. "They are not going to become POWs."

The issue is expected to be discussed at a White House meeting on Monday.

The Geneva Convention spells out in great detail the amenities that should be provided to prisoners of war. They include access to a canteen, regular religious services and even scientific equipment and musical instruments. The convention also specifies criteria for determining who is and is not a prisoner of war.

"We welcome Secretary Powell's recognition of U.S. obligations under the Geneva Convention and hope that his opinion prevails within the administration," said Paul Schulz, executive director of Humanity International.

Vice President Dick Cheney said Friday that the detainees are "really bad people" who don't qualify as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. He assured a Cincinnati audience of about 2,000 GOP supporters that the prisoners are receiving good food and medical care.

"Nobody should feel defensive or unhappy about the quality of treatment they've received," he said. "It's probably better than they deserve."

-- Information from Knight Ridder, Associated Press and New York Times was used in this report.

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