WASHINGTON, Feb. 8, 2002 – It is because the United States places such emphasis on the Geneva Convention that American officials do not consider Al Qaeda covered by the agreement nor are they willing to award the Taliban detainees POW status.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during a Pentagon press briefing today discussed presidential decisions that White House spokesman Ari Fleischer announced Feb. 7.

President Bush, Fleischer said, had decided that the Geneva Convention of 1949 applies to the conflict with the Taliban in Afghanistan, but not to the conflict with Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan or anywhere else. He also determined that Taliban detainees do not meet the convention's criteria for prisoner of war status.

White House lawyers thought long and hard about the situation before making recommendations to Bush, Rumsfeld said. The lawyers were worried about the precedent their decision could set about detainees in future conflicts, he added.

"Prudence dictated that the U.S. government take care in determining the status of Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees," he said. "When the Geneva Convention was signed in 1949, it was crafted by sovereign states to deal with conflicts between sovereign states." The current war on terrorism is not a conflict envisioned by the framers of the Geneva Convention, he said.