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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (125441)	7/15/2005 2:05:28 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793782

NYT Court Backs Bush on Trials for Qaeda Suspects at Guantánamo By DAVID STOUT Published: July 15, 2005 WASHINGTON, July 15 - A federal appeals court ruled today that military commissions could resume war crimes trials of detainees at the American naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a significant victory for the Bush administration's antiterrorism policy. A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled unanimously for the administration and against Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, who is facing terrorism charges. The panel emphatically overturned a decision on Nov. 8 by a federal district judge in Washington, James Robertson, who had ruled that in setting up military commissions to try the detainees President Bush overstepped his constitutional authority and improperly brushed aside Geneva Convention provisions on the handling prisoners of war. "The president found that Hamdan was not a prisoner of war under the Convention," Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote for the panel in today's ruling. "Nothing in the regulations, and nothing Hamdan argues, suggests that the president is not a 'competent authority' for these purposes." Mr. Hamdan's lawyers can now appeal to the full Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, or they can seek to appeal directly to the United States Supreme Court. But for the moment, the Bush's administration's policies and approach have been validated. Judge Robertson had held that the commissions could not go on because they did not provide minimally fair procedures and violated international law. His conclusion threw into doubt the legal proceedings devised by the administration to deal with hundreds of suspected terrorists captured by the United States in Afghanistan during the military campaign that toppled the Taliban following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In the appeal upheld today, the administration argued that the commission trials were fair - and not incidentally a vital part of its war on terrorism - and that since the stateless Qaeda terror network had never signed the Geneva Convention, its members were not entitled to the protections afforded prisoners of war, which include the right not to be put on trial for hostilities. The appeals court said Congress had given the president all the authority he needed in a resolution passed just after Sept. 11, 2001. "It is impossible to see any basis for Hamdan's claim that Congress has not authorized military commission," the court ruled. Nor does it matter at all, the court said, that Congress did not formally declare war on Al Qaeda after Sept. 11. The battle against Al Qaeda is as much a conflict as many other undeclared but still deadly wars in the nation's history, the court reasoned. The court accepted the administration's argument that Mr. Hamdan - who has denied that he is a terrorist - does not fit the definition of "prisoner of war," and that Al Qaeda is not covered by the Geneva Convention.