THE White House’s chief legal adviser told President Bush shortly after the September 11 attacks that parts of the Geneva Conventions were “quaint”, and that their strictures were “obsolete”.

Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel, delivered the January 2002 opinion in response to the “new kind of war” ushered in by 9/11. He argued that Mr Bush could “preserve his flexibility” by sidestepping the Geneva accords.

He was forced into a partial retreat by a horrified Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, who warned Mr Bush that the move would reverse “over a century of US policy and practice”.

The Geneva rules were applied to Taleban prisoners, but not to al-Qaeda.

Mr Bush’s spokesman defended the language of the Gonzales memo. Scott McClellan said the term “quaint” referred to provisions such as providing prisoners with monthly pay, “athletic uniforms and scientific instruments”. But in the light of the Abu Ghraib scandal, critics have seized on the memo as an indication that the Administration put the wellbeing of prisoners low on its priorities.

The Pentagon has insisted that all prisoners in Iraq, bar 100 “high value” detainees from Saddam Hussein’s regime, are held according to the Geneva accords. But Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defence Secretary, was forced to admit that keeping prisoners hooded for 72 hours was inhumane even though it was listed as being among the techniques the US military could use in Iraq.

The US guards facing courts martial yesterday revealed more horrific details of the Abu Ghraib abuse. Lynndie England said guards forced detainees to crawl on their hands and knees over broken glass and forced male prisoners to wear sanitary towels. One alleged ringleader, Charles Graner, stitched up prisoners with a needle and thread if the wounds he had inflicted “weren’t too bad”.

A hooded prisoner died after interrogators realised too late that he had untreated head wounds. The body was packed in ice and photographed — one of the defining images of the scandal. Guards used air freshener until the body was finally taken away.

Times Recommends

• Rio Tinto four held as China prepares case
• Diplomats must keep heads down and trousers up
• When in Rome should one make like Berlusconi?