Powell Asks Bush to Reverse Stand on War Captives
Breaking with other cabinet officials, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has asked President Bush to declare that the United States is bound by the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of the captives in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, administration officials said today.

Seeking a review of a presidential decision made nine days ago, when the administration determined that the captured fighters were not prisoners of war and hence not fully protected by the Geneva Conventions, Mr. Powell and his lawyers at the State Department urged Mr. Bush to affirm that the international law of war does govern the United States' treatment of all captives of the Taliban military and the terrorist network Al Qaeda.

Mr. Powell asked for the review after allies and human-rights advocates suggested that the United States had skirted some of the conventions' technical requirements.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/27/politics/27DETA.html