Hmmmmmm why now?

George Bush, the US president, has signed an executive order forbidding the CIA to torture, humiliate or abuse suspected terrorists in its once’secret interrogation program.

But human rights groups have condemned what they called the vague language of the decree, saying it amounted to a “trust us” approach that left out critical details.

Bush ordered that the CIA programme, revealed publicly in September 2006, must abide by the Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions on wartime detainees.

But the decree does not describe in any further detail a secret CIA prison network that has drawn outrage from US allies in Europe.

‘Incommunicado detention’

Tony Snow, a presidential spokesman, said the order barred “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” and “acts of violence serious enough to be considered comparable to murder, torture, mutilation, and cruel and inhuman treatment”.

“It also prohibits ‘willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual in a manner so serious that any reasonable person, considering the circumstances, would deem the acts beyond the bounds of human decency’.”

“And the order forbids acts intended to denigrate detainees’ religion, religious practices, or religious objects,” Snow said.

Jennifer Daskal, a senior counter-terrorism counsel with Human Rights Watch, said: “The key aspect of this is all the parts that aren’t said.”

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