U.S. mulls Guantanamo closure as Bush term nears end

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

U.S. mulls Guantanamo closure as Bush term nears end
Fri May 2, 2008 2:01pm EDT

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration could
announce plans by the end of its term in January to close
Guantanamo prison and an upcoming Supreme Court ruling
might be the impetus for this, senior U.S. officials and
experts say.

The government is under international and domestic pressure
to close the prison, which opened at the U.S. naval base
at Guantanamo Bay on Cuba in January 2002 to house
terrorism suspects caught after the invasion of
Afghanistan.

"A decision could be made in this administration to announce
the closure of Guantanamo. It is unlikely in the next nine
months that Guantanamo could be physically (closed) but it
is possible the policy decision could be taken to close it,"
said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition he was
not identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Officials say planning and debate has intensified in recent
months over how to deal with Guantanamo, which President
George W. Bush acknowledges has tarnished America's image
and human rights advocates say has damaged U.S credibility.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0219936520080502

[NJSecularist]

1. What is the name of this Supreme Court case?

Have oral arguments been heard yet?

[KSinTX]

3. There appear to actually be two

Two months after the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case on the rights of the Guantánamo detainees, an unanticipated development has suddenly scrambled the outlook for a straightforward resolution. Cases that have been proceeding on completely separate judicial tracks may be about to converge.

-snip-

Boumediene v. Bush, the case the Supreme Court heard on Dec. 5, challenges Congress’s withdrawal of the federal courts’ jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions from detainees contesting their open-ended confinement. Whether the Military Commissions Act of 2006 violated the Constitution’s injunction against the “suspension” of habeas corpus is a question steeped in constitutional history and theory.

By contrast, Bismullah v. Gates, the subject of the administration’s new appeal, is as deep in the weeds of Congressional intent as the Boumediene case is high up in the realm of constitutional principle. It concerns the intricate system that Congress established in the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 for determining whether a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay was being properly held as an enemy combatant. The dispute is over how extensive a record the government must supply when a prisoner designated as an enemy combatant then appeals to the forum provided by the 2005 law, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/06/us/nationalspecial3/06scotus.html?_r=1&oref=slogin (2-6-08)

[bemildred]

2. Empty babble. nt