Pentagon To Now Treat All Detainees In Accordance With Geneva Conventions

Any normal country would have been doing this all along.

In a sweeping change of policy, the Pentagon has decided that it will treat all detainees in compliance with the minimum standards spelled out in the Geneva conventions, a senior defense official said today.

The new policy comes on the heels of a Supreme Court ruling last month invalidating a system of military tribunals the Pentagon had created to try suspected terrorists, and just before Congress takes up the question of a replacement system in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today.

As part of its decision, the court found that a key provision of the Geneva conventions, known as Common Article 3, did apply to terror suspects, contradicting the position taken by the Bush administration.

The White House has now made it official:

The decision, announced by White House spokesman Tony Snow this morning, according to wire service reports, comes in the wake of a landmark June Supreme Court ruling rejecting the administration's persistent argument that the Geneva Conventions did not apply....

Prior to the Supreme Court's 5-3 decision in the case of Guantanamo detainee Salim Hamdan, the government had argued that while it was observing the principles of the Geneva Conventions, they did not apply as a matter of law to those it terms "enemy combatants" because they are not under the command of a government signatory to the Conventions.

The court rejected that position, saying Common Article 3 applied to those seized as part of a conflict within the borders of any signatory nation, such as Afghanistan, whether or not they are under the command of a government.