Dodd Proposes Restoring Rights for Terrorism Suspects
    By Mary E. O'Leary
    The New Haven Register

    Friday 01 December 2006

    Christopher Dodd, Connecticut's senior U.S. senator, has proposed revamping the newly authorized military commissions to restore habeas corpus protections for terrorism suspects, as well as to curb executive interpretation.

    U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is expected to co-sponsor the legislation, according to Dodd's office.

    Habeas corpus is a writ ordering that a person in custody be brought before a court; it places the burden of proof on those detaining the person to justify the detention.

    Dodd also has written to President Bush, asking that implementation of the commissions be delayed until a new secretary of defense is given a chance to scrutinize elements of the new law.

    Bush has proposed that Robert Gates replace Donald Rumsfeld, who has been defense secretary for the past six years and the main strategist behind the Iraq war.

    Although there will be a majority of Democrats in the Senate when the 110th Congress convenes in January, it is not clear whether Dodd will be successful in convincing his colleagues to adopt his proposal. The 51-49 Democratic majority is not capable of overriding a presidential veto.

    The Supreme Court threw out the commissions as originally defined by the Bush administration and Congress enacted a revised system this fall which limits the usual courtroom rights of defendants, allows the president to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Convention and removes judicial review of all habeas claims brought by detainees.

    It also grants retroactive protection to U.S. personnel who engaged in rough treatment of prisoners, allows the CIA to continue its once-secret program of detaining prisoners overseas and broadens the definition of enemy combatant.

    In signing the bill in October, the president said it was needed in the fight against terror. "It is a rare occasion when a president can sign a bill he knows will save American lives," Bush said at the time.

    Trials are expected for the 14 senior al-Qaida members recently transferred to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, but advocates for the other 400 detainees fear the lack of habeas corpus leaves the majority of them in limbo.

    A study of those being held at Guantanamo found that more than half were not picked up on the battlefield in Iraq or Afghanistan, but were picked up in Pakistan and turned in for bounty payments.

    Dodd feels the lack of habeas corpus protections for detainees undermines the moral authority of the United States and puts American servicemen and women in jeopardy.

    "There is a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this. It's clear that people who perpetrated these horrendous crimes against our country and our people have no moral compass and deserve to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But in taking away their legal rights, the rights first codified in our country's Constitution, we're taking away our own moral compass as well," Dodd said.