Bush to unveil proposal on Guantanamo detainees
By Caren Bohan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President George W. Bush plans to
unveil proposed legislation on Wednesday to set a structure for
conducting trials of foreign terrorism suspects held at
Guantanamo Bay, White House officials said.
The Supreme Court in June rejected as illegal the military
tribunal system set up by the Bush administration to try
Guantanamo prisoners, most of whom were captured in
Afghanistan.
The court said the tribunals — an alternative legal system
– lacked congressional authorization and did not meet U.S.
military or international justice standards.
That system would have allowed defendants to be barred from
their own trials, limited their access to evidence and allowed
testimony from interrogations critics say amounted to torture.
The White House declined to give details about the
legislative proposal. Unveiling of the proposal will coincide
with a speech Bush is to give at the White House on terrorism,
the third in a series on the topic he began last week.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said the speech will
discuss the proposed legislation but also touch on broad issues
about how the United States should handle terrorism suspects.
“It raises the question, how do you operate, how do you
conduct appropriate detention and justice exercises in the wake
of the Supreme Court’s decision? And what is it we need to do?
What are the stakes involved?” Snow said.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has said the
administration would propose trying enemy combatants based on
military court martial procedures — although with a number of
key changes such as admitting hearsay evidence, limiting rights
against self-incrimination before a trial and limiting
defendants’ access to classified information.
SENATE, HOUSE BILLS
Gonzales also told lawmakers the administration’s plan
might allow testimony obtained by coercion if it was reliable
and useful.
Democrats have said those provisions would leave the new
trial system vulnerable to another Supreme Court rebuke.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, a
Virginia Republican, said he and Republican Sens. John McCain
of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina were
circulating their version of legislation.
Their bill adheres more to military court martial
procedures, and Warner’s spokesman John Ullyot said there were
“some sticking points with the administration” on it.
The House Armed Services Committee also was set to release
its version of the bill, all in hopes of producing final
legislation before Congress breaks in early October to campaign
for November congressional elections.
The United States currently holds about 445 detainees at
the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, many without
charges for more than four years.
The administration also plans as early as Wednesday to
unveil long-awaited changes to the Army Field Manual, which
sets standards for interrogation of prisoners, defense
officials said. A key issue is whether the manual would permit
different interrogation methods for “enemy combatants” than for
traditional prisoners of war.
Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Armed Services
Committee Democrat, said after being briefed on proposed Army
manual changes that it “looks as though it’s moving in the
right direction.”
Congress last year passed a law championed by Arizona’s
McCain to prohibit cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment or
punishment of prisoners and to create uniform standards for
treating them.
(Additional reporting by Vicki Allen)