“On July 20, 2007, President Bush issued an Executive Order [No. 13400] interpreting Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions as it applied to the CIA’s program of detention and interrogation. In the Order, President Bush reiterated and reaffirmed his statement of February 7, 2002 that Common Article 3 did not apply to members of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces. It reaffirmed and reinforced his authority as President and Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military forces to interpret the meaning and application of Common Article 3, and said that this should be treated as authoritative for all purposes of U.S. law as well as U.S. obligations under international law. Although no details of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program were provided in the Order, it set out certain guidelines for the CIA not to engage in murder, torture, cruel or inhuman treatment, or willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse due to humiliate or degrade someone in a manner that is so serious to be deemed beyond the bounds of human decency.”
– M. Cherif Bassiouni, The Institutionalization of Torture by the Bush Administration, Page 149