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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Limits to terror ruling advocated

Pete Yost Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Two Republican senators said Sunday that Congress must rein in the Supreme Court ruling that international law applies to the Bush administration’s conduct in the war on terror.

Thursday’s Supreme Court decision embracing Article 3 of the Geneva Accords in the military commission case of Osama bin Laden’s former driver strikes at the heart of the White House’s legal position in the war on al-Qaida.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the second-ranking GOP leader in the Senate, said the 5-3 court decision “means that American servicemen potentially could be accused of war crimes.

“I think Congress is going to want to deal with that,” McConnell said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He called the ruling “very disturbing.”

The Geneva Convention’s Article 3 is “far beyond our domestic law when it comes to terrorism, and Congress can rein it in, and I think we should,” said Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., assigned as a Reserve Judge to the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals. Graham spoke on “Fox News Sunday.”

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., also expressed concern about the decision, saying it “is somewhat of a departure, in my view, of people who are stateless terrorists.”

Article 3 mandates standards of treatment in cases of armed conflicts not of an international character in the territory of a contracting party, which Afghanistan is.

Article 3 prohibits outrages upon personal dignity, “in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment,” and bars violence, including murder, mutilation and torture.

McConnell wants Congress to deal with the Geneva Accords issue at the same time it addresses another aspect of the court’s ruling overturning President Bush’s military commissions created to try a limited number of detainees from Guantanamo Bay.

“I don’t think we’re going to pass something that’s going to have our military servicemen subject to some kind of international rules,” said McConnell.

Addressing the commission issue, McCain and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Congress might pose broader changes than the White House wants in trials of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

As a starting point for debate, McCain said, Congress should embrace the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the bedrock of military law protecting the rights of accused soldiers. The Bush administration has sidestepped the code for nearly five years in dealing with Guantanamo Bay prisoners it has classified as enemy combatants.

Specter said that “we have to reconcile” what the Bush administration thinks it can do and what the Supreme Court decision says.

Specter spoke on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and McCain appeared on ABC’s “This Week.”

Many Republicans in Congress say detainees in the war on terror should not have the same legal protections as those in the military and that Congress should give its sanction with little or no change to the Pentagon’s military commissions.