PUBLIC AFFAIRS SECTION

Press Release

13 September 2006
Ambassador Robert H. Tuttle Responds to Lord Falconer's Speech

We are disappointed by the Lord Chancellor’s suggestion that the United States has tried to place the detainees at Guantanamo beyond the reach of the law. No country, including the United States, possessed a ready legal framework to combat the legions of transnational al Qaida terrorists we faced as part of and after the September 11th attacks. Our practices have evolved over time, consistent with the self-correcting mechanisms inherent in the U.S. system of checks and balances. Today, the detainees at Guantanamo receive an unprecedented level of legal protections. The U.S. Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruled that our war with al Qaida is governed by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, and all detainees at Guantanamo are treated consistently with these requirements. U.S. law prohibits torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment of any detainee in U.S. control anywhere in the world. The new Department of Defense interrogation field manual provides a unified standard for interrogation of detainees held by the Department of Defense that is also fully consistent with Common Article 3. And the Administration just sent draft legislation to Congress that would allow us to bring to justice in military commissions those detainees accused of war crimes, using procedures consistent with Common Article 3. Thus, contrary to the Lord Chancellor’s statement, the detainees at Guantanamo receive significant protection under U.S. and international law.

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