The Sunday Times Inside the glass house

NEW YORK - When US newspapers ran horrifying pictures of American soldiers humiliating and torturing Iraqi prisoners in the now-notorious Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad last year, there was an international outcry that the Bush administration was violating the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of prisoners of war. Even President George W. Bush, who swears by Christian ethics and puritan moral values, was outraged by the photographs taken unsuspectingly by fellow soldiers and circulated on the internet and later in the mainstream media.

As one comedian joked, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was indirectly held responsible for the transgressions of American soldiers, apparently told senators that the Geneva Conventions on prisoner's rights certainly applies in Iraq, but not for prisoners held in US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay. Asked why, Rumsfeld supposedly said "nobody has pictures of Guantanamo Bay."
So the (im)moral of the joke is: unless you get caught with your underpants down, the Bush administration can keep infringing international conventions. And the Geneva Conventions specifically call for the humane treatment of prisoners of war. Last week, even some Republican senators of the governing political party were angered by an attempt by the White House to re-define a key provision of the Geneva Conventions.

If the White House backed legislation is passed, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) will have the right to "alternative interrogation practices" for terrorism suspects — leaving room for wide new interpretations of the Conventions which were adopted back in August 1949 and came into force in October 1950. Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which the Bush administration wants to bypass, specifically lays down guidelines on how prisoners and detainees should be treated.

To this end, say the Conventions, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to prisoners of war: (a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; (b) Taking of hostages; (c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment; (d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court according all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples. Under the convention, the wounded and sick shall also be collected and cared for. An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.

Senator John McCain, a Republican front runner for next President of the US, is leading the opposition to the White House bill thereby setting himself against Bush, both of whom belong to the same political party. McCain's opposition carries considerable political weight because he was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. As Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, a senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said of the Bush administration last week: "They're trying to re-interpret the Geneva Conventions.'' Levin pointed out that McCain was "the best expert on that because he is somebody who has very personal experience with those who violate Geneva Conventions." Levin has warned Bush that he is taking on a formidable opponent in a former Vietnam prisoner of war — and who knows fully well what torture is all about.

McCain's argument is that the US is losing its moral authority in the world by trying to re-interpret the Geneva Conventions to suit its own war against terrorism.

In a supportive letter to McCain, former Secretary of State Colin Powell who served the Bush administration for four years, says he is backing McCain's argument. Says Powell: "The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our right against terrorism". Any attempt to re-define Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions "would add to those doubts." Both McCain and Powell also argue that by changing the international rules of war, the Bush administration is also risking the lives of American soldiers because other countries can also refuse to adhere to the Geneva Conventions or give their own interpretations.

McCain's opposition to the proposed legislation has also sparked a rebellion of sorts in the ranks of the Republican party, including sharp criticism of the bill by Senator John Warner, a Bush supporter, who is also chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Republican in-fighting has put the White House in a huge hole of its own making. And the controversy over the Geneva Conventions comes at a time when human rights organisations are blasting the Bush administration's "war on terror" which has led to the erosion of civil liberties and violations of international laws.

Asked about his take on the war on terror, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters last week: "Let me say that the UN's position and my own position has been very, very clear."

"In the fight against terrorism, we ought to be very careful not to erode human rights and civil liberties. I do not believe there is or there can be a trade-off between the effective fight against terrorism and protection of civil liberties.

"If, as individuals we are asked to give up our freedom, our liberties and human rights, for protection against terrorism, and we do it, do we in the end have protection? I think we need to be careful not to undermine human rights and civil liberties in this fight against terrorism because if we do, we are handing the terrorists a victory they cannot win on their own."