WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court decision striking down the military tribunal system for trying accused enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay has apparently presented the Bush administration and its allies in Congress with two choices -- both fraught with risk.
They can use the GOP majorities in the House and Senate to put a quick congressional seal of approval on something close to the existing system, but run the risk that it too will be struck down by the high court.
Or they can follow the path suggested by the court and devise a system embracing the procedural and other principles of the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Convention, but risk the possibility that few, if any, of the alleged terrorists will be convicted.
And both choices, as well as attempts to chart a middle course, could set off the kind of protracted, internally divisive debate that the White House and GOP political strategists would not relish with the November elections approaching.
Indeed, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) issued a warning Sunday: "Republicans will rue the day if they politicize this," she told ABC's "This Week."
Two Republican senators -- prospective GOP presidential candidate John McCain of Arizona and Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania -- have made clear their desire to dig into the problem.
"We're going to have to dot all the i's and cross all the t's on this legislation to make sure it passes muster," Specter said Friday.
The high court's decision has set up what may be the biggest test so far of the government's ability to reconcile maximum anti-terrorism effort with traditional American standards of legal fairness and decency. And the test has been almost five years in the making.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration and its supporters have argued that extreme measures are necessary and justified against a foe that employs extreme tactics and rejects accepted moral standards. Civil libertarians, many Democrats and now the Supreme Court have argued that the war on terrorism must be waged in a manner compatible with established legal and ethical principles.
In the case of the alleged terrorists in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the challenge is to devise a system that will survive later judicial review yet permit successful prosecution.
Many legal experts say that will be hard to do.
