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I think you're getting a bit down in the weeds on this issue of conferring POW status to Gitmo detainees and in a way that suggests Holder was at one point a little soft on the Geneva Conventions.
To be clear: I don't think Holder was soft on Geneva because of the POW issue. I think he was soft on Geneva because he explicitly said that Al Qaeda detainees are not entitled to Geneva protections -- the same position advocated by Rumsfeld and, ultimately, the Bush administration:
It seems to me that given the way in which they have conducted themselves, however, that they are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention.
Here's the full exchange - it's clear what Holder is saying:
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Getting back now to the question of the detainees. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has been out front restating the administration's hard line. He says the detainees, the -- quote -- "unlawful combatants are terrorists and should not be entitled to prisoner of war status."
ZAHN: Meanwhile, there are reports that Secretary of State Powell wants the administration to state that the detainees will be treated in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Convention. Why is that important? And what kind of line will the administration continue to hold?
Joining us now with a law enforcement perspective from Washington, former Deputy U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder -- good to see you, sir. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.
ERIC HOLDER, FORMER DEP. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Good morning.
ZAHN: The president will be meeting with his National Security team this morning to talk about, well, the apparent discord here. Give us a preview of what this discussion might entail. When you have Secretary of State Powell saying, "Let's abide by the Geneva Convention," and then folks on the other side, we are told, saying "Wait a minute. If we hold them to that kind of status, then all they'll be required to give us is their name, rank and file number."
HOLDER: Yes, it seems to me this is an argument that is really consequential. One of the things we clearly want to do with these prisoners is to have an ability to interrogate them and find out what their future plans might be, where other cells are located; under the Geneva Convention that you are really limited in the amount of information that you can elicit from people.
It seems to me that given the way in which they have conducted themselves, however, that they are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. They are not prisoners of war. If, for instance, Mohammed Atta had survived the attack on the World Trade Center, would we now be calling him a prisoner of war? I think not. Should Zacarias Moussaoui be called a prisoner of war? Again, I think not.
He was taking the Rumsfeld line: given the way they have "conducted themselves," they are unlawful combatants, not prisoners of war, and therefore "they are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention."
