Court curbs Bush power, fans Guantanamo debate

By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – By declaring the Guantanamo Bay
military tribunals illegal, the U.S. Supreme Court put fresh
curbs on President George W. Bush’s powers in the war on
terrorism and gave ammunition to those demanding the prison be
closed.

Thursday’s ruling, in a case brought by Osama bin Laden’s
former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, marks the third time the
nation’s highest court has placed limits on the president’s
powers in the fight against terrorism and dealing with
prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

The court found the tribunals, which Bush created right
after the September 11 attacks, violated the Geneva Conventions
and U.S. military rules.

“The administration was asserting incredibly broad,
essentially plenary, executive authority in this very broadly
and very nebulously defined context of the war on terror,” said
retired Air Force lawyer, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Walker. “This is
nothing but a slap in the face of the administration.”

Critics have often accused the Bush White House of using
the war against terrorism to expand executive powers while
curtailing congressional oversight. Among the most frequent
examples they cite is a secret domestic eavesdropping program
that has enraged both Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

Todd Gaziano, a Supreme Court expert at the conservative
Heritage Foundation, said Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling
placed inappropriate limits on executive authority.

“It is profoundly disturbing that the court would take away
from the commander in chief the sole discretion of determining
what is militarily necessary,” he said, describing the ruling
as “a historical disgrace on the court.”

But he said the decision would not have a major impact on
the president’s ability to wage the war against terrorism,
since he could still resort to other procedures not denied by
the court and Congress could “fix the errors that the court has
read into the treaties and statutes.”

THE FUTURE OF GUANTANAMO

The United States currently holds about 450 detainees at
Guantanamo Bay prison, most detained without charges for more
than four years. Hamdan is one of only 10 prisoners who have
been charged with crimes and face the tribunal.

While the decision has no direct bearing on the future of
the controversial detention center, legal and security experts
say it has indirectly strengthened the hand of those demanding
it be closed.

Scott Silliman, a retired Air Force attorney who is now
executive director of Duke University’s Center on Law, Ethics
and National Security in North Carolina, said that while the
ruling only affected the 10 men who were charged, it reopened
the festering question of what to do with the roughly 440
others.

The Supreme Court decision quickly triggered calls by
critics such as the American Civil Liberties Union, which said
“the president should make good on his promise and close
Guantanamo.” Bush had said last week he eventually wanted to
shut the prison.

“My suspicion is that the whole future of the Guantanamo
structure is now in some turmoil,” said Michael Krauss, a law
professor at George Mason University in Virginia and a fellow
at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which is
hawkish on national security issues.

Krauss called the ruling a “devastating defeat for the
administration, and I’m not rejoicing that this is the case.”

Former Air Force officer Walker, who now works in a private
practice, said the ruling would probably open the door for new
legal challenges to the Guantanamo system soon.

“It’s coming,” he said. “The next obvious issue might well
be somebody trying to challenge the indefinite detention
issue.”