Bush puts CIA prisons under Geneva Conventions

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush, under fire over the treatment of CIA detainees, on Friday ordered that agency interrogators comply with the Geneva Conventions against torture.

Five years after he exempted al Qaeda and Taliban members from the Geneva provisions, Bush signed an executive order requiring the CIA to comply with prohibitions against "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" as set down in the conventions' Common Article 3.

Human rights activists criticized Bush's action, saying it did not go far enough to eliminate dangerous interrogation techniques.

Bush, who insists the United States does not use torture, has faced pressure at home and abroad over interrogation techniques used on suspected militants held at secret CIA prisons and other locations, including the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Critics have complained the CIA has mistreated prisoners during clandestine flights in and out of countries in Europe.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John Rockefeller of West Virginia said intelligence officials should tell the panel how Bush's order "will translate into actual conduct by the CIA" and the Justice Department must provide a legal analysis.

Amnesty International USA, a human rights group, said that while specific acts including rape and sexual assault were banned, the "deafening silence on other techniques that the CIA may have used, such as waterboarding, the cold room technique and sleep deprivation, speaks volumes."

Bush's broad assertions of power in his war on terror have also come under assault from U.S. judges, who have rejected his indefinite imprisonment of enemy combatants and domestic spying program.