Administration Prods Congress to Curb the Rights of Detainees

[cal04]

A day after saying that terror suspects had a right to protections under the Geneva Conventions, the Bush administration said Wednesday that it wanted Congress to pass legislation that would limit the rights granted to detainees.

The earlier statement had been widely interpreted as a retreat, but testimony to Congress by administration lawyers on Wednesday made clear that the picture is more complicated.

The administration has now abandoned its four-year-old claim that members of Al Qaeda are not protected under the Geneva Conventions, acknowledging that a Supreme Court ruling two weeks ago established as a matter of law that they are. Still, administration lawyers urged Congress to pass legislation that would narrowly define the rights granted to detainees under a crucial provision of the conventions.

The maneuvering now under way was prompted by that Supreme Court decision, which struck down the tribunals the administration had established for terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/washington/13gitmo.html?hp&ex=1152763200&en=f2515595d4e590d6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Ringo84]

1. Re:

Those bastards. "The law is how WE define it".
Ringo

[azurnoir]

2. This was one of the

things I read the GB would do to circumvent the SCOTUS ruling.

[WhiteTara]

3. the monkey is never wrong

when are we going to storm the front gates of the wh and send them to the hague where they belong?