Congressional Digest

Excerpt

Shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President
George W. Bush authorized the detention of noncitizens
suspected of having ties to al Qaeda and the Taliban at
the U.S. Naval Station in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Since
then, some 500 men have been held at the facility and 256
others have been released, 76 to the custody of their home
countries.
The detention center has become a flashpoint for international
controversy because of the U.S. Defense
Department’s determination to hold the detainees as “enemy
combatants.” Under the Geneva Conventions – a legal regime
for the treatment of detainees i…