Imagine for a moment that somebody in the Bush administration had thought of this four years ago.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon announced it would apply the protections of the Geneva Conventions to the 500-some detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, bowing to common sense and a June 29 U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned plans to use military commissions to try alleged terrorists.
The Pentagon directive, which applies only to prisoners in military custody, effectively cancelled a February 2002 executive order that announced Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions didn’t apply to al-Qaeda or Taliban detainees. (Nobody has said what happens to prisoners in CIA custody.)
The White House has always put a not-to-worry spin on the issue, claiming that it was following the spirit of the conventions, if not acknowledging the letter. Press secretary Tony Snow kept spinning on Tuesday, saying, “It’s not really a reversal of policy.” That’s not really true.
Over four years, abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, harsh conditions and questionable interview methods at Guantánamo, accusations of torture and claims of secret CIA prisons in Europe all have roused skepticism at home and abroad about how the U.S. is battling terrorism. We hope the new policy does at least a little to repair America’s moral image.
Questions of how to treat detainees now move to Congress, where they should have started. The administration will ask lawmakers to put a stamp of approval on use of military commissions, while some senators prefer traditional military courts-martial. Critics fear commissions don’t provide enough protections for defendants, while the military worries that courts-martial are too cumbersome for a fluid war on terror.
A congressional verdict is welcome. Lawmakers must devise a system that affords proper legal protections while providing an appropriate measure of flexibility. If the administration had been more reasonable four years ago, such a debate wouldn’t be necessary today.
