Want credibility? Call off Cheney, back ban on torture

EDITORIAL BOARD
Friday, December 09, 2005

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is spending much of her official visit to Europe this week insisting that the American government does not condone and will not permit torture of prisoners, here or abroad. That such a defense is necessary is a national embarrassment, but it is necessary because the words and actions of President Bush and his administration raise doubts.

As Rice has pointed out, the government has a problem in that persons detained, arrested or captured as terror suspects are not, like uniformed soldiers from the army of an enemy state, entitled by law or treaty to the protections of the Geneva Convention. The enemy has no army and no state.