Pentagon Lawyers Challenge Detainee Plan
By KATE ZERNIKE
New York Times
WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 — The Bush administration’s proposal to bring leading terror suspects to trial met stiff resistance Thursday from key Republicans and top military lawyers who said that some provisions would not withstand legal scrutiny or do enough to repair the nation’s tarnished reputation internationally.
Democrats, meanwhile, said they were inclined to go along with Senate Republicans who have been drafting an alternative to the White House plan, one that would allow greater rights to defendants. That left Republicans to argue among themselves about what the tribunals would look like.
The skeptical response threatened to rob the issue of the political momentum the White House hoped it would provide going into the closely fought midterm elections. A day after President Bush unveiled the plan at the White House, senior administration officials said that Mr. Bush was willing to negotiate with Congress about the shape of legislation to establish tribunals, which would replace those struck down in June by the Supreme Court.
The administration officials said the decision to transfer high-level terror suspects from Central Intelligence Agency prisons to military custody had been the result of months of secret debate at the highest levels of government. The officials said the change had been most vigorously championed by the State Department, under Condoleezza Rice, against some resistance from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, which had defended the status quo, in which high-level Al Qaeda leaders, including the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, remained in secret C.I.A. custody.
The 14 terror suspects recently transferred to the American detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, under the administration plan would face war crimes trials if Congress approves new tribunals. On Thursday, Rear Adm. Harry Harris, the commander of the American detention facility, said the prisoners had been registered for the first time with the International Committee of the Red Cross, but he would not say when the prisoners had arrived, whether they had arrived together, or how long he had known in advance that they were coming.
(There is more.)
New York Times
WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 — The Bush administration’s proposal to bring leading terror suspects to trial met stiff resistance Thursday from key Republicans and top military lawyers who said that some provisions would not withstand legal scrutiny or do enough to repair the nation’s tarnished reputation internationally.
Democrats, meanwhile, said they were inclined to go along with Senate Republicans who have been drafting an alternative to the White House plan, one that would allow greater rights to defendants. That left Republicans to argue among themselves about what the tribunals would look like.
The skeptical response threatened to rob the issue of the political momentum the White House hoped it would provide going into the closely fought midterm elections. A day after President Bush unveiled the plan at the White House, senior administration officials said that Mr. Bush was willing to negotiate with Congress about the shape of legislation to establish tribunals, which would replace those struck down in June by the Supreme Court.
The administration officials said the decision to transfer high-level terror suspects from Central Intelligence Agency prisons to military custody had been the result of months of secret debate at the highest levels of government. The officials said the change had been most vigorously championed by the State Department, under Condoleezza Rice, against some resistance from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, which had defended the status quo, in which high-level Al Qaeda leaders, including the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, remained in secret C.I.A. custody.
The 14 terror suspects recently transferred to the American detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, under the administration plan would face war crimes trials if Congress approves new tribunals. On Thursday, Rear Adm. Harry Harris, the commander of the American detention facility, said the prisoners had been registered for the first time with the International Committee of the Red Cross, but he would not say when the prisoners had arrived, whether they had arrived together, or how long he had known in advance that they were coming.
(There is more.)
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