[Media-watch] US 2002 Justice Memos: POW laws don't apply - NYTimes/AP/Newsweek - 21/05/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

Longer Newsweek feature at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5032094/site/newsweek/

Yoo memo available at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5025040/site/newsweek/

Habeas jurisdiction memo at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5022681/site/newsweek/

________________

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Prisoner-Abuse-Justice.html

2002 Justice Memos: POW Laws Don't Apply
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: May 21, 2004


Filed at 6:54 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Memos written by top Justice Department lawyers for the
Pentagon in early 2002 laid out legal reasons why the United States did not
have to comply with international treaties regarding the treatment of
prisoners.

One key draft memo, dated Jan. 9, 2002, states that the normal laws of armed
conflict, including the Geneva Conventions, do not apply to al-Qaida and
Taliban militia prisoners. The memo calls these groups ``non-state actors''
who should not be considered a party to international treaties governing war
conduct.

While the memos were written before the war in Iraq, they authorized methods
of interrogation for the Afghanistan conflict that some human rights
organizations have said laid the legal groundwork for the violations seen
months later at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and elsewhere.

Justice Department officials had no comment on the memos Friday.

The memo and others on the subject were drafted in part by John Yoo, then a
senior lawyer in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and now a
law professor at the University of California at Berkeley. The memos were
the subject Friday of a story in The New York Times and were subsequently
posted on Newsweek's Internet site.

The Jan. 9 memo, co-written by Yoo and Justice lawyer Robert J. Delahunty,
was addressed to Defense Department general counsel William J. Haynes. It
lays out several legal reasons why President Bush could avoid normal
prisoner legal protections in Afghanistan, including an argument that it was
a ``failed state'' or that the Taliban and al-Qaida were intertwined terror
groups who should not be treated as legitimate soldiers.

``Al-Qaida is merely a violent political movement or organization and not a
nation-state,'' the memo says.

After that memo was written, White House General Counsel Alberto Gonzalez
advised Bush in a memo dated Jan. 25, 2002, that al-Qaida and the Taliban
should be considered outside the coverage of the Geneva Conventions.

The Jan. 9 Justice Department memo provoked a strong reaction from the State
Department, according to Newsweek. In its Jan. 11 response, State Department
lawyers warned that the United States could be considered in breach of
international law if Bush accepted the Justice Department position and might
later find it difficult to prosecute suspected war criminals.



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