US Took Detainees Outside Iraqi for Interrogation : Report

The confidential memo, drafted by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel last March, covers both Iraqi citizens and foreigners in the oil-rich country, said the mass-circulation.

It permits the CIA to take Iraqis out of the country to be interrogated for a "brief but not indefinite period," and allows permanent removal of persons deemed to be "illegal aliens."

Geneva Breached

According to the Post, which said it had obtained a copy of the memo, the author wrote a footnote that a violation of this provision constitutes a "grave breach" of the accord and a "war crime" under US federal law.

"For these reasons, we recommend that any contemplated relocations of ‘protected persons’ from Iraq to facilitate interrogation be carefully evaluated for compliance with Article 49 on a case by case basis," reads the footnote.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention protects civilians during wartime and occupation, prohibiting "individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory… regardless of their motive."

The Bush administration transferred many people arrested in Afghanistan to the notorious Guantanamo detention camp, claiming they are "enemy combatants" who are not protected under the Geneva Conventions.

The United States has been massively criticized for detaining at least 660 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay for years without pressing charges against them or given them access to legal representation.

More than 200 have either been released or transferred to the control of their own governments since the American Supreme Court endorsed the right of Guantanamo prisoners to challenge their captivity in American courts.

However, Washington had said that former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party and military, fighters and other civilians in Iraq, were to be protected by the Geneva Conventions, the Post pointed out.

"The Geneva Conventions are applicable to the conflict in Iraq, and our policy is to comply with the Geneva Conventions," White House spokesman Sean McCormick told the paper when asked about the memo.

Hidden From ICRC

The CIA has not disclosed the identities or locations of prisoners captured in Iraq, the Post said.

It added that American authorities also concealed the detainees from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

A Pentagon spokesman admitted that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally ordered a secret detention of an Iraqi detainee without giving him an identification number so that he can escape the eyes of ICRC teams.

The ICRC accused the US of hiding hundreds of suspects captured arrested in its so-called war on terror in secret locations worldwide.

In a report entitled "Ending Secret Detention", the American Human Rights First said the United States has more than 24 world detention camps , at least half of them operate in total secrecy, where the abuse of detainees is "inevitable".

Also, the Observer reported on Sunday, June 13, that Washington and its allies are running a wanton global network of detention camps allowing the US to fly terror suspects to other countries where they are tortured for information.

In an unprecedented move, 31 United Nations human rights experts pressed Friday, June 25, for access to so-called terror suspects around the world.