In order for the Bush administration to undertake the harsh interrogation of detainees that it thought was necessary, it had to deal with a series of legal obstacles. These included most importantly the Geneva Conventions, U.S. laws, and customary international law. It also had to set aside the Uniform Code of Military Justice and Army regulations. In doing so, the administration argued that the president’s commander-in-chief authority allowed President Bush to ignore international law and rendered any law that might limit the president’s authority regarding detainees unconstitutional. The administration felt it also had to keep its treatment of detainees shielded from judicial scrutiny. It thus argued that habeas corpus, the centuries-old Anglo-American right of suspects who claimed they were innocent to get a hearing before an independent judge, did not apply to suspects of terrorism.4