WP: White House Shifts Tack on Military Tribunals (toughens position)

[DeepModem Mom]

White House Shifts Tack on Tribunals
Bush to Propose Only Minor Changes
By Jonathan Weisman and Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 20, 2006; Page A03

Top White House officials took a harder line yesterday on a new system to try terrorism suspects, telling Republican senators that President Bush will soon formally propose a tribunal structure with only minor changes from the military commissions that were ruled unconstitutional last month.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley met with Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), offering views on a new tribunal structure that they said could pass constitutional muster with a Supreme Court that rebuked the White House in June. The senators said Bush will give Congress a proposal soon.

But Senate Republican aides familiar with the discussion said that the White House position has hardened since a White House meeting earlier this month, when Hadley assured the same senators the White House could accept tribunals based largely on existing military law, known as the Uniform Code of Military Justice. That could place Bush on a collision course with the Senate, where a bipartisan group of lawmakers is preparing legislation that would hew closely to military law in outlining more rights for defendants than the administration wants to grant....

***

The Bush administration offered starkly mixed signals last week, first releasing a Defense Department memo pledging that detainee treatment would abide by the Geneva Conventions, then sending lawyers from the Justice and Defense departments to testify before the House and Senate that certain parts of the conventions remain problematic and that Congress need only ratify the original commission plan to meet the Supreme Court's requirements for a legislative blessing.

The Senate Armed Services Committee concluded three days of hearings with testimony from the military's most senior lawyers, or judge advocates general, who said the existing rules for courts-martial should be the starting point for new legislation. Former top military lawyers said the Supreme Court's ruling stated that the commissions as originally drafted would be unconstitutional, even if formalized through legislation, because they would not secure defendants' rights to representation and evidence guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/19/AR2006071901946.html

[Roland99]

1. Meeting with only fellow One-Party Rule leaders? Gotta love democracy.

:eyes:

[rodeodance]

2. "The Bush adm. offered starkly mixed signals last week,"--a poll is

needed!

[Solly Mack]

3. What happened is...

What happened is that some thug in the Bush Regime finally read the full law regarding military tribunals and discovered that while Congress has the power to authorize tribunals, the President gets to set the rules/procedures.

Prior to the SCOTUS ruling the Bush Regime didn’t bother fully researching the law – because they were going to torture and illegally detain people no matter what the law stated.


Article 836 of the UCMJ states Congress has the authority to allow for military tribunals and that the President has the “authority to prescribe rules of evidence and procedure for courts-martial and military tribunal.”

See below links for verification and a fuller explanation.

However, nothing – absolutely nothing – gives Bush the right to break the law in setting forth rules and procedures of military tribunals. And we all know, from Bush's criminal behavior, that breaking the law is exactly what Bush plans to continue to do.







Article 836 - info

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Solly%20Mack/39

Memo Regarding Bush’s Tribunal – Article 836

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Solly%20Mack/38

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Thanks for this additional info, Solly Mack. nt

[Solly Mack]

5. I've been waiting on the "tougher stance" to emerge

I figured that once one of the thugs reviewed the laws this would happen.

When the SCOTUS ruling first came down, Bush and thugs gave meaningless answers - because they didn't know exactly where they stood (in my opinion)...but now they do.