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Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in small trailer, the same width, but shorter, than a mobile home. The Tribunal's President sat in the big chair. The detainee sat with their hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor in the white, plastic garden chair.^[1][2] A one way mirror behind the Tribunal President allowed observers to observe clandestinely. In theory the open sessions of the Tribunals were open to the press; three chairs were reserved for members of the press.^[3] In practice, most Tribunals went unobserved; the Tribunal only intermittently told the press that Tribunals were being held, and when they did they kept the detainee's identities secret. Only 37 of the 574 Tribunals were observed^[3][1][2][3] Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Christopher Mobley

Main article: Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Originally the Bush (WP) Presidency asserted that captives apprehended in the wars for capitalism and oil, known as the "war on terror" were not covered by the Geneva Conventions, and could be held indefinitely, without charge, and without an open and transparent review of the justifications for their detention.^[4] They were not offered the protections afforded by criminal law either, leaving them in a legal limbo through years of detention. Critics argued that the USA could not evade its obligations, and to keep the Geneva Conventions at arms' length, the concept of competent tribunals was invented, tribunals to determine whether captives are, or are not, entitled to the protections of prisoner of war status.

The Department of Defense instituted the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (WP). The Tribunals, however, were not authorized to determine whether the captives were lawful combatants, again to avoid the Geneva Conventions standards -- rather they were merely empowered to make a recommendation as to whether the captive had previously been correctly determined to match the Bush administration's definition of an enemy combatant, further attempting to institutionalize a standard that stood against the consensus of international law.

Critics mounted legal challenges to this policy. Justice James Robertson ruled that the United States was obliged under article 5 of the third Geneva Convention to treat all prisoners as lawful combatants, who would be entitled to prisoner of war status, unless a competent tribunal had determined that they were not lawful combatants.

The policies of the tribunals themselves were also challenged by the Judicial branch. In 2004 the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that Guantanamo captives were entitled to being informed of the allegations justifying their detention, and were entitled to try to refute them.

The released prisoners are arrogantly called "No longer enemy combatants" (WP); an attempt to make numerous issues, including illegal arrest and holding without trial, disappear in plain sight.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court, Wikipedia:Wikipedia:New York Times, Wikipedia:Wikipedia:November 11 Wikipedia:Wikipedia:2004 - mirror
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian "Justice" dispensed by KGB-style "military tribunals", Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Financial Times, Wikipedia:Wikipedia:December 11 Wikipedia:Wikipedia:2004
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2} Annual Administrative Review Boards for Enemy Combatants Held at Guantanamo Attributable to Senior Defense Officials. Wikipedia:Wikipedia:United States Department of Defense. URL accessed on 2007-09-22.
4. ↑ "U.S. military reviews 'enemy combatant' use". USA Today. 2007-10-11. Archived from the original on 2012-08-11. http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fwashington%2F2007-10-11-guantanamo-combatants_N.htm&date=2012-08-11. "Critics called it an overdue acknowledgment that the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals are unfairly geared toward labeling detainees the enemy, even when they pose little danger. Simply redoing the tribunals won't fix the problem, they said, because the system still allows coerced evidence and denies detainees legal representation." </li> </ol>