POWs Or Terrorists?

The U.S. Central Command said Monday that captured Iraqis are being treated as prisoners of war but said there would be accountability for any terrorist acts that would violate the rules of war.

U.S. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks cited several incidents in which loyalists of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein shot and killed Iraqi civilians while using them as human shields in facing U.S. forces.

He said no decision had been made to designate any of the more than 4,000 Iraqi prisoners as unlawful combatants and send them to a prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where followers of Osama bin Laden were incarcerated after the Afghanistan war.

"Right now at this point, we are treating all that we have taken into our custody as prisoners of war," Brooks said, noting that the Bush administration would decide whether to treat them as terrorists.

Brooks said Iraqi paramilitary forces that acted as death squads and carried out "brutal acts" against civilians would be held accountable under the Geneva Conventions, which govern the actions of combatants.

Brooks was responding to reports in The Washington Post that U.S. forces have begun rounding up Iraqis in civilian clothes who are suspected of involvement with paramilitary squads and may ship them to the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo.

The report said military lawyers were drafting criteria designed to guide front-line troops on how such Iraqis could be taken into custody. The detainees would be treated like POWs but without an official status until a hearing is held, which would determine whether they can be released, held as POWs or declared illegal combatants, the report said.

The report said the roundups are part of a shift to unconventional warfare by U.S. commanders in response to the hit-and-run attacks launched by the Saddam's Fedayeen and Baath Party militias on U.S. supply lines. The Americans have decided to emulate the British, who have used commando raids to counter resistance in southeastern Iraq.

Officers told the Post that suspects are being isolated from enemy prisoners of war since they may have been tormentors of regular army soldiers now being held.

Hearings will be held in Iraq under Article 5 of the Geneva Conventions, officers told the Post, to determine whether the detainees are released, held as POWs or declared illegal combatants. If they are labeled POWs, they will be held until the end of the war and then released along with other prisoners.

"There will be accountability for the violations of the Geneva Conventions," Brooks said, adding he did not believe any U.S. portrayal of the acts of Iraqi loyalists would affect the treatment of Americans held by Iraq.

"We can't account for what this regime will do with our POWs," he said.

On the battlefield, Brooks confirmed that U.S. troops had engaged Republican Guard units south of Baghdad, saying the Army's 5th Corps was hitting the Medina division with air attacks and artillery fire.

Elsewhere, the U.S. 1st Marine Expeditionary Force conducted a raid in Fajir, south of Kut, and captured several Baath Party members, weapons and documents, he said.

He said the local population in Basra was providing information on Saddam loyalists in the city, but there were still areas "under the boot of the Iraqi regime."

On Monday, the international Red Cross said it had started visiting some of the thousands of prisoners of war held by coalition forces in Iraq, but had yet to receive word that it can see U.S. POWs taken by the Iraqi military.

Balthasar Staehelin, Mideast head at the International Committee of the Red Cross, told reporters that 15 staff from the Swiss-based organization traveled to a camp in southern Iraq where coalition forces were holding 3,000 soldiers.

ICRC officials met for several hours with the camp commander before touring the facility and beginning to register the captives, Staehelin said.

Since the U.S.-led war began on March 20, Iraq has acknowledged capturing six Americans, including two pilots. Staehelin said the ICRC had "indications" that access would be granted.

The 1949 Geneva Conventions — which set basic humanitarian standards in armed conflict — empower the ICRC to visit POWs and monitor their treatment.

After captured Americans were shown being questioned on Iraqi television on March 24, the ICRC said it was unhappy about the broadcast. The ICRC expressed similar disquiet over television footage of captured Iraqi soldiers.