Bush weighs expanded detainee rights -senators

WASHINGTON, July 13 (Reuters) - The Bush administration is weighing policies to expand legal rights of foreign terrorism suspects, key Senate Republicans said today, despite officials' earlier calls for Congress to give a legal basis to the current system which the U.S.

Supreme Court struck down.

Sen. John McCain said White House officials told him they would base their proposal on the military code of justice, not the administration's system of military tribunals that the Supreme Court last week said violated US military rules and had not been authorized by Congress.

''We did agree at the time ... that the basis of proceeding on applicable legislation would be the Uniform Code of Military Justice,'' the Arizona Republican said. He met this week with White House national security advisor Stephen Hadley.

Administration officials appearing at hearings earlier this week urged Congress to pass legislation enacting Bush's plan that limits suspects' access to evidence and legal counsel, with some minor changes.

Congress is crafting a process to try terrorism suspects -- mostly held at the US naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- after the Supreme Court slapped down the military tribunal system Bush established soon after the September 11 attacks.

Bush has faced international criticism for the indefinite detention and allegations of mistreatment of detainees, mostly scooped up in the war in Afghanistan.

US military judge advocates general, appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, agreed that Congress should use the military justice code as a basis for writing legislation, a plan pushed by Democrats and a number of Senate Republicans.

Se John Warner, the committee's chairman, said he was ''somewhat perplexed'' by administration testimony earlier this week that stated ''rather finite parameters.'' The Virginia Republican said the administration was still working on a policy that it would present to lawmakers soon after Bush returns from the Group of Eight summit in Russia.

In a potential clash between the House of Representatives and the Senate, most Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee yesterday indicated they wanted to keep Bush's current system. They said the military justice system would give the foreign terrorism suspects too many rights.

At that hearing, Daniel Dell'Orto, the Defense Department's principal deputy general counsel, said Congress would have to greatly weaken the military-justice system to apply it to foreign terrorism suspects. Otherwise, he said it would impede interrogations and would compromise classified information.

But several Senate Armed Services Committee members said the Supreme Court decision requires expanding detainees' rights through the US military system. ''That's what the United States Supreme Court has told us to do,'' McCain said.

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