Editorial: The rules of engagement

Saturday, Sept. 9, 2006 | 7:42 a.m.

Adequate preparations for the war in Iraq would have included an updated Army Field Manual for commanders and their troops. The manual, which governs all of the services, would have included information on how to treat detainees.

The old manual addressed the Geneva Conventions, which provided guidelines for uniformed enemies captured on battlefields and for captured enemies presumed to be members of traditional fighting forces.

It didn't address terrorism suspects who do not wear uniforms, who are not part of conventional military forces and whose battlefields range from city streets to commercial airliners.

Without a manual that specifically addressed how to treat captured insurgents and terrorist suspects, the Pentagon and field commanders made up their own rules for a new type of war.

Those rules, much to the disgust of the American people and the international community, included threatening suspects (who were as likely to be innocent as guilty) with vicious dogs, stripping them naked and sexually humiliating and abusing them, subjecting them to near drownings and draping their heads with hoods and attaching wires to their bodies.

The new field manual requires that detainees be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. Although it is not perfect - the CIA is exempt from the manual's directives, for example - it is an improvement. Its rules, even if not yet in writing, should have been in effect from the moment Bush declared a global war on terror.