Rumsfeld set to drop Geneva Convention:

The Pentagon is pushing for its new policy on prisoner detention to omit a key tenet of the Geneva convention that bans "humiliating and degrading treatment", marking a potentially permanent move away from international human rights standards.

Military officials say the decision follows a lengthy debate within the US Department of Defence, but will not become final until the Pentagon makes the new guidelines public, a step that has been delayed.

The Pentagon has been redrawing policies on prisoners and interrogation for more than a year, and intends to issue a new Army Field Manual, which, with accompanying directives, represents core instructions to US soldiers worldwide.