Critics of Guantanamo Urge Hill to Intervene

Most of the detainees were captured in Afghanistan, although some were apprehended in Bosnia, the United States and elsewhere, said New York University law professor Stephen J. Schulhofer, an authority on anti-terrorism law and one of the witnesses at yesterday's hearing.

Criticizing policies that have prevented detainees from seeing lawyers or challenging their imprisonment for months or years, Schulhofer said: "Global terrorism poses unique challenges, but when it comes to detention, interrogation and trial, we found no reason to think that the traditional institutions used in all prior wars aren't up to the task."

Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Hemingway, a Pentagon legal adviser, disagreed. "We have built a whole judicial system to try these cases" because the detainees are "unprivileged belligerents" covered by neither the Geneva Conventions nor U.S. criminal statutes, he told the committee. No trials have been completed for Guantanamo Bay detainees, he said, partly because of "the exercise of the defense counsel and the detainees' rights in federal courts."

"Well, those pesky rights," Leahy said sharply. A federal judge has ruled the military trials planned by the government illegal, placing them on hold while the Bush administration appeals.

Leahy said Congress must intervene in Guantanamo Bay policies. "From the start, the administration's answer to every question about our detention policies has been, 'Trust us.' " Now, he said, "the one thing we know for certain is that any trust we may have had was misplaced."

A small number of detainees have been returned to their home countries from Guantanamo Bay, officials said, and about a dozen returned to battle U.S. forces. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said yesterday in Brussels: "We can't release them and have them go back to fight against America." He said Bush would decide when the facility is no longer necessary. "There will, of course, be an end," Gonzales said.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said, "There is not enough buy-in by the Congress to what's going on at Gitmo. There is a buy-in on my part, and I think many others, that we need this place desperately to protect us in this war on terror, to hold people accountable, to get good intelligence."

He suggested that Congress develop "some statutory provisions defining enemy combatant status and standardizing intelligence-gathering techniques and detention policies."

Staff writer Dan Eggen contributed to this report.