Obama may revive military commissions for trying detainees

(Compiler's note: This is a must read item.)

By William Glaberson

The Obama administration is moving toward reviving the military commission system for prosecuting Guantanamo detainees, which was much criticized during the Bush administration, including by Barack Obama himself.

Officials said the first public moves could come as soon as next week, perhaps in filings to military judges at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, outlining an administration plan to amend the Bush administration's system to provide more legal protections for terrorism suspects.

Obama administration officials — and Obama himself — have said in the past that they were not ruling out prosecutions in the military commission system. In congressional testimony Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "The commissions are still very much on the table."

In a news conference this week, Attorney General Eric Holder emphasized that if the administration did use military commissions, the rules must give detainees "a maximum amount of due process."

But, speaking of detainees whom American officials have accused of involvement in major terrorist plots, Holder added, "It may be difficult for some of those high-value detainees to be tried in a normal federal court."

Senior officials have emphasized that they prefer to prosecute terrorism suspects in existing American courts. When the president suspended Guantanamo cases after his inauguration Jan. 20, many participants said the military commission system appeared dead.

But in recent days a variety of officials involved in the deliberations say that after administration lawyers examined many of the cases, the mood shifted toward using military commissions to prosecute some detainees.