US promises to respect Geneva Conventions

In a policy reversal, the Pentagon on Tuesday released a memo directing Defense Department staff and brass to strictly adhere to the Geneva Conventions in handling foreign detainees.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England instructed US military leadership in the memo "to promptly review all relevant directives, regulations, policies, practices and procedures under your purview to ensure that they comply with the standards of Common Article Three" of the Geneva Conventions.

"You will ensure that all (Department of Defense) personnel adhere to these standards," said the July 7 directive.

Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch, said the Pentagon's decision to apply the Geneva rules to anyone captured on the battlefield "is welcome news for soldiers around the world."

The policy shift comes after the George W. Bush administration for months had maintained that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to combatant fighting for the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other terror groups.

But the unexpected change comes as Bush prepares to attend this week's Group of Eight summer of leading world powers in Saint Petersburg, Russia, where several otherwise staunch US allies take exception to Washington's treatment of terror suspects.

The change was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling late last month rejecting the Bush administration's plans to impanel special military tribunals to try the terror suspects. The high court ruled that such panels were a violation of international and domestic law.

The US administration, meanwhile, insisted that it all along has respected the human rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.