Ashcroft to Face Tough Senate Grilling on Tribunals

By: Joanne Kenen

Attorney General John Ashcroft will face a tough grilling from lawmakers in coming weeks over President Bush's proposal to create secret military tribunals and employ other "ad hoc, outside the justice system methods" to fighting terrorism, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said on Sunday.

Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said lawmakers in both parties were upset with Ashcroft, who won sweeping new powers to fight terrorism in post-Sept. 11 legislation and has since announced other controversial measures such as monitoring conversations between suspects and defense attorneys and interviewing thousands of young men from the Middle East.

Leahy, who negotiated the anti-terror legislation with Ashcroft last month, noted on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the Attorney General had held out the likelihood of immediate arrests of terror suspects once those new prosecutorial powers were granted.

The wave of arrests did not materialize, and Ashcroft has instead announced new measures including a proposal for secret military tribunals that would not follow the usual rules and standards of the U.S. criminal justice system, Leahy said.

"We pick up the paper every morning and here's, 'We're going to wiretap defense counsel, we're going to do these ad-hoc, outside-the-justice-system methods'", Leahy said, referring to the administration's tactics.

Asked if he was upset with Ashcroft, Leahy emphatically answered, "Yes, very much so". Leahy plans a preliminary hearing this week and expects Ashcroft to testify the following week, an appearance that he said would not be "perfunctory".

President Bush has said he wants the option of instituting military tribunals for accused terrorists, in which military officers would act as judge and jury.

Trials could be secret, with procedures and composition of the courts to be determined by the U.S. defense secretary and military commanders. The usual rules of evidence and right to defense counsel would not necessarily apply, Leahy noted.

Bush said he wanted to have that option if any al Qaeda members linked to the Sept. 11 suicide aircraft attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon are apprehended.

However, critics on both the left and right have said these tribunals would abrogate civil liberties and undercut the fundamentals of the U.S. criminal justice system.

Leahy noted he was not disposed to be soft on terrorism, particularly since he personally was the target of an anthrax letter that investigators believe may have contained enough of the potent bacteria to kill up to 100,000 people. But he said he was not convinced that military tribunals were the only or the best way to achieve justice.

"We all agree that there should be justice here", Leahy said. "But let's be a little bit careful how we do it."

Also appearing on the show, Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, said he was not as critical as Leahy of Ashcroft, but that he too had concerns, particularly about any wiretapping of attorney-client conversations.