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House Approves Bill on Terror Detainees

By Anne Plummer Flaherty
The Associated Press
Thursday 28 September 2006

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6110928,00.html

Washington - The House approved legislation Wednesday giving the Bush administration authority to interrogate and prosecute terrorism detainees, moving President Bush to the edge of a pre-election victory with a key piece of his anti-terror plan.

The mostly party-line 253-168 vote in the Republican-run House prompted bitter charges afterward by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., that opposition Democrats were coddling terrorists, perhaps foreshadowing campaign attack ads to come. Democrats responded that the GOP leader was trying to provoke fear.

Even as the House debated the bill, senators of the two parties agreed to limit debate on their own nearly identical measure, all but ensuring its passage on Thursday.

… snip …

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6110928,00.html

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Rushing off a Cliff

The New York Times | Editorial
Thursday 28 September 2006

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/opinion/28thu1.html

Here's what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans' fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws - while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.

Republicans say Congress must act right now to create procedures for charging and trying terrorists - because the men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks are available for trial. That's pure propaganda. Those men could have been tried and convicted long ago, but President Bush chose not to. He held them in illegal detention, had them questioned in ways that will make real trials very hard, and invented a transparently illegal system of kangaroo courts to convict them.

It was only after the Supreme Court issued the inevitable ruling striking down Mr. Bush's shadow penal system that he adopted his tone of urgency. It serves a cynical goal: Republican strategists think they can win this fall, not by passing a good law but by forcing Democrats to vote against a bad one so they could be made to look soft on terrorism.

… snip …

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/opinion/28thu1.html

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