Counsel backs Bush's policy of detaining terror suspects

[rodbarnett]

WASHINGTON -- The White House counsel on Tuesday issued an unusually spirited defense of the Bush administration's policy of detaining terrorism suspects indefinitely as enemy combatants.

Alberto Gonzales told a committee of the American Bar Association that the process that led to the designation of two U.S. citizens -- Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla -- as enemy combatants was a "reasoned and deliberate" one.

The Bush administration's decision to hold terrorism suspects as enemy combatants with none of the rights of criminal defendants has been controversial and faces a hearing this spring before the Supreme Court.

Hamdi, Gonzales said, was "a relatively easy case" because he was seized in Afghanistan in 2001, allegedly serving with a Taliban unit and armed with an AK-47.

Padilla, a former gang member who lived in South Florida and Illinois, was arrested in Chicago in 2002. He is accused of being part of a plot to detonate a "dirty bomb."

http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/123898-3466-010.html

[aquart]

1. Uh huh. What a surprise. This is his job, right?

[papau]

2. Brits plan to define a special type of Lawyer - Security Cleared-for these

cases.