Geneva Contention

Via Wall Street Journal - Opinion Journal for Monday, September 18, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Does John McCain favor the CIA interrogations or not?

The media are concentrating on the politics of the intra-Republican fight over military tribunals and detainee treatment, which last week saw the Senate Armed Services Committee move a bill substantially different from what the White House wants. But the stakes here are far more serious: To wit, if Senators John McCain, John Warner, Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins get their way, aggressive interrogation as an antiterror intelligence tool will effectively end.

Thanks to last year's McCain Amendment, the Defense Department is already required to give detainees in its custody better treatment than American police must give common criminals. The new Army Field Manual doesn't even allow for good cop/bad cop routines against Iraqi and Afghan insurgents if threats of any kind are conveyed or implied. This restraint is not required by the Geneva Conventions, which clearly distinguish between lawful and unlawful combatants--the latter being deemed to have fewer rights because they have violated the rules of war by fighting out of uniform or targeting civilians.

Now the four GOP Senators and most Democrats are working to put CIA interrogators under similarly restrictive rules. If they get their way, they will make it impossible for any government agency to squeeze the next al Qaeda terrorist who may have information about a ticking bomb in an American city.

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