Not So Fast...

The other day I blogged about a news report about how "the Bush administration said Tuesday that all detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and in all other U.S. military custody around the world are entitled to protections under the Geneva Conventions," a decision made in response to the Supreme Court's ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

As I noted then, some were skeptical of the administration's apparent acceptance of Geneva.

Such skepticism appears to have been warranted, as a new NY Times article would indicate-

A day after saying that terror suspects had a right to protections under the Geneva Conventions, the Bush administration said Wednesday that it wanted Congress to pass legislation that would limit the rights granted to detainees.

The earlier statement had been widely interpreted as a retreat, but testimony to Congress by administration lawyers on Wednesday made clear that the picture was more complicated.

The administration has now abandoned its four-year-old claim that members of Al Qaeda are not protected under the Geneva Conventions, acknowledging that a Supreme Court ruling two weeks ago established as a matter of law that they are. Still, administration lawyers urged Congress to pass legislation that would narrowly define the rights granted to detainees under a provision of the Geneva Conventions known as Common Article Three, which guarantees legal rights “recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”...

Reuters has a related report on this subject.

Finally, I end with this section from further down in the Times story-

Military lawyers, human rights groups and some lawmakers have warned that an effort by Congress to limit the rights granted to terror suspects under the Geneva Conventions would blacken the United States’ reputation internationally, by effectively announcing to the world that it was reneging on a fundamental and commonly held notion of human rights.

“We should embrace Common Article Three and sing its praises from the rooftops,” Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, a former judge advocate general of the Navy who is retired, told the Armed Services Committee. "To avoid it or try to draft our way out of it is unbecoming the United States."

Many conservatives these days disagree, though.

[UPDATE:
Some Senators indicate Bush may agree to "prosecute terrorism suspects under a court system based on the Pentagon's Uniform Code of Military Justice." Sen. McCain, before you applaud this move, make sure the President doesn't have his fingers crossed this time. He's tricky like that.]