 Critics argued that the USA could not evade its obligation to conduct a competent tribunals to determine whether captives are, or are not, entitled to the protections of prisoner of war status.Subsequently the Department of Defense instituted the Combatant Status Review Tribunals.The Tribunals, however, were not authorized to determine whether the captives were "lawful combatants"—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.