Supreme Court to weigh in on military tribunals

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court is giving no free passes to the commander in chief.\nPressed by the Bush administration to stay out of a wartime powers case, the court jumped in anyway. The justices will decide if the president overstepped his authority by ordering military tribunals for terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, resurrecting a type of trial last used during World War II.\nThe case the justices will hear next spring involves Osama bin Laden's former driver.\nThe court's intervention is troubling news for the White House, which has been battered by criticism of its treatment of detainees and was rebuked by the high court last year for holding enemy combatants in legal limbo.\n"To have the court step in and say we want to review the president's decisions as he's acting as commander in chief, that's significant," said Scott Silliman, a Duke University law professor and former Air Force attorney.\nNew Chief Justice John Roberts took himself out of the case because as an appeals court judge he held that the government could put Salim Ahmed Hamdan on trial before a military commission. If Bush nominee Samuel Alito is confirmed, he could be a pivotal figure when the case is argued.\nAnnouncement of the court's move came shortly after Bush, asked about reports of secret U.S. prisons in Eastern Europe for terrorism suspects, declared anew that his administration does not torture anyone.\n"There's an enemy that lurks and plots and plans and wants to hurt America again," Bush said during a news conference in Panama City, Panama, with President Martin Torrijos. "So you bet we will aggressively pursue them but we will do so under the law."\n"Anything we do to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture," he said.\nSeparately, the Pentagon said Monday that it had charged five more terror suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay with offenses and that they would face trial by a military tribunal. That brings the number of detainees there who have been charged with criminal offenses to nine. There are about 500 detainees at Guantanamo Bay in all.\nHamdan, a Yemeni who was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001, denies conspiring to engage in acts of terrorism and denies he was a member of al-Qaida. He has been charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes, murder and terrorism.\nThe Bush administration argued that national security was at stake. "The military proceedings involve enforcement of the laws of war against an enemy force targeting civilians for mass death," Solicitor General Paul Clement wrote in a filing.\nRobert Turner, a law professor specializing in national security at the University of Virginia, said that however the case turns out it will be good for the government.\n"If we're going to win the war on terrorism, we have to maintain the moral high ground. It's important to have the highest court in the land pass judgment on it," he said.