thanks Joe, and ..meanwhile, back at Guantanamo Bay..

Guantanamo tactics too harsh, military told

Interrogations changed after army lawyers warned that techniques not permitted

By ROBERT BURNS; Associated Press; Saturday, May 22, 2004

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has revealed that in the first year of interrogations at the U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists, senior military lawyers in Washington raised objections to the use of techniques that were harsher than permitted under standard military doctrine.
As their protests became more apparent in late 2002, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ended the use of such tactics pending the outcome of a comprehensive review that stretched from mid-January, 2003, to mid-April, a senior civilian Pentagon lawyer said.
The lawyer, who discussed the matter Thursday on condition of anonymity as details are classified secret, said Mr. Rumsfeld approved new guidelines in April of 2003 that won the military lawyers' blessing. Those guidelines are different (they allow harsher methods) than the approaches used in Iraq, because all prisoners in Iraq are deemed by the Bush administration to be covered by prisoner protections ofthe Geneva Conventions, whereas those at Guantanamo Bay are not, the lawyer said.

In Australia yesterday, Prime Minister John Howard said his government is pressing the Pentagon to respond to allegations that two Australian terror suspects, David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, were abused while under detention in Afghanistan and Cuba. The two men have been held without charge for more than two years at Guantanamo Bay. Larry Di Rita, chief spokesman for Mr. Rumsfeld, confirmed the basic timeline of the Guantanamo Bay interrogation policy but said he could not reveal specifics about the interrogation techniques used there.

"It's highly sensitive information," he said. "Everybody [was] mindful of the uniqueness -- it was new, it was complicated and it was balancing the need for intelligence versus the need to do it right. "It was a hard darn problem because we did have known al-Qaeda [members] down there, and known al-Qaeda who were believed to have information involving attacks on the United States," he added. Mr. Di Rita described the interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay in early 2002 as "non-doctrinal," meaning they were not in accordance with the military doctrine written to apply to interrogations of prisoners of war, not terrorists.

The military lawyers believed that some of those techniques went too far, other officials said. They also questioned the policy of not applying the Geneva Conventions to Guantanamo. Questions about limits on interrogation techniques and detention methods have focused mainly on U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, amid the prisoner-abuse scandal. Investigators also are checking U.S. interrogation practices in Afghanistan, but the Pentagon has not acknowledged serious shortcomings the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Major-General Geoffrey Miller, a former commander there, told a Senate committee that there "was no systemic abuse at Guantanamo at any time."