I.N.N. World Report

In January, 2002 then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales advised George Bush to deny al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners protections under the Geneva Conventions because doing so "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act" and "provide a solid defense to any future prosecution." Two weeks later, Bush signed an action memorandum addressed to Dick Cheney, which denied baseline protections to al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners under the Third Geneva Convention. That memo, according to a bipartisan report by the Senate Armed Services Committee, opened the door to "considering aggressive techniques," which were then developed with the complicity of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. The committee's December 11 report says: "The President's order closed off application of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, to al-Qaeda or Taliban detainees." Read more