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Bush seeks war crimes exemptions
By UPI Staff
United Press International
August 10, 2006

WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The Bush administration is seeking to exempt politicians, CIA agents and ex-soldiers from prosecution for mistreating prisoners, the Washington Post reports.

The amendments were submitted to Congress, which is debating changes to the 1996 War Crimes Act after the Supreme Court struck down the administration's prisoners policy in June.

The amendments would narrow the reach of the War Crimes Act, which now states U.S. citizens can be prosecuted in federal criminal courts for violations of the Geneva Conventions, which the United States ratified in 1949.

While the act criminalizes cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment of wartime prisoners as laid out in the Geneva Conventions, the administration amendments also narrow the scope of criminal prosecutions to 10 specific categories, the Post said.

"This removal of reference to humiliating and degrading treatment will be perceived by experts and probably allies as 'rewriting'" the Geneva Conventions, said retired Army Lt. Col. Geoffrey Corn, who was recently chief of the war law branch of the Army's Office of the Judge Advocate General.

Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved