House passes detainees trial bill

WASHINGTON - The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill backed by President George W. Bush setting rules for interrogating and trying foreign terrorism suspects, dismissing warnings from Democrats that courts will reject the plan.

The Senate was considering the measure that Republicans want to send to Bush before the U.S. Congress recesses this weekend to campaign for November elections. Bush was forced to negotiate a new proposal after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled his original plan was illegal.

The House voted largely along party lines for the bill, produced in negotiations between the White House and three dissident Republicans, that sets up military commissions to try terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Republicans, seeking to polish their terrorism-fighting credentials before the elections to determine control of Congress, depicted the rules as tough but fair.

"We provide basic fairness in our prosecutions but we also preserve the ability of our war fighters to operate effectively on the battlefield," said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, a California Republican.

But Rep. Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat, said the bill sends a signal that "America's leaders are willing to abandon our values ... in favor of thuggish tactics they hope might make them safer for a little while."

Democrats said the Supreme Court would strike down the plan once more for curbing detainees' legal rights, including the right of the inmates being held without charges to challenge their detentions in court.

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