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Posted on 11/16/2001 1:11:38 PM PST by JohnHuang2

WASHINGTON, Nov 14, 2001 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Special military courts authorized by President Bush could be used to try Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenants overseas, as well as foreign nationals already arrested in the United States, according to senior U.S. officials Wednesday.

Attorney General John Ashcroft, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld all left both possibilities wide open in remarks to reporters Wednesday.

The three were all separately questioned about an executive order signed Tuesday by President Bush that authorizes the creation of one or more military commissions to try non-citizen terrorist suspects, which could be held in secret and with different and much looser rules of evidence than criminal courts.

Although details remain to be worked out, the order clearly gives the administration the power to establish such courts either at home or abroad, and try before them any non-citizens identified by the President as members of bin Laden's al Qaida group who have planned or executed terrorist attacks against the United States, or anyone who has harbored them.

Ashcroft in particular repeatedly and pointedly refused to rule out a military trial for bin Laden and his associates for their alleged roles in plotting the Sept. 11 terror attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"In the course of the war we might capture terrorists in Afghanistan," Ashcroft said. "I don't think we have to bring them back to the United States for justice."

The attorney general added "foreign terrorists ... do not deserve the protection of the Constitution."

And when White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was asked whether the special court could try some of those hundreds of foreign nationals being held in the United States, he replied, "Yes."

"The military order does not make a distinction between whether this would take place within Afghanistan or whether it could apply to anybody who was detained in the United States," said Fleischer, stressing that the order did not apply to citizens.

Under the order, the Secretary of Defense has to establish the special courts, and draw up the rules under which they will operate. But Tuesday evening, Defense Department public affairs officials said that they had learned about the order after it had been issue to the media.

It remained unclear Wednesday when -- and indeed perhaps whether -- such rules might be drafted. "It's up to the President to decide if and when he wants such a thing established," said Rumsfeld early Wednesday morning, "We're in the process of thinking through the details."

Ashcroft repeatedly said the United States was at war and special measures were needed.

"It's pretty clear that we're at war now ... That distinguishes this setting form other settings ... I believe those who commandeered airplanes (to carry out the Sept. 11 attacks) ... committed the kinds of activities that constitute war crimes..."

"They're acts of war, against civilization, in my opinion, as well as the United States," Ashcroft said.

Under current U.S. case law, the military can only court-martial civilians during time of war.

However, the president appears to regard the current conflict with al Qaida as a war, and the "Authorization for Use of Military Force Resolution," enacted by Congress following the Sept. 11 terror attacks, as the equivalent of a declaration of war.

The resolution, passed Sept. 14, allows Bush to use "all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11."

Peacetime courts-martial of civilians were found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1957's Reid vs. Covert.

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(Reported by Mike Kirkland and Kathy Gambrell in Washington and Pam Hess at the Pentagon)

By United Press International

Copyright 2001 by United Press International.

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