Cato Daily Dispatch for April 19, 2004
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Supreme Court to Hear 'Enemy Combatant' CasesNew Book Alleges Iraq Planning Began Shortly After Sept. 11
UK Does U-turn on EU Constitution
Supreme Court to Hear 'Enemy Combatant' Cases
"Three Supreme Court cases generated by the Bush administration's detention of those it deems 'enemy combatants' will be argued over the next 10 days, framing a debate of historic dimension not only about the rights of citizens and noncitizens alike, but also -- or perhaps principally -- about the boundaries of presidential power," the New York Times reports.
"Liberal and civil rights organizations are not the only groups to have filed briefs on the detainees' behalf. One of the most pointed is from the Cato Institute, a libertarian research organization here that is influential in conservative circles.
"The institute's brief in the Hamdi case describes the government's argument that the courts cannot meaningfully review a determination of enemy combatant status as a 'shocking assertion' that 'strikes at the heart of habeas corpus.'"
Cato has also filed a brief in the Padilla v. Rumsfeld case. The brief argues that Padilla is being unlawfully held as an "enemy combatant" because he was taken into custody at an international airport, which is the equivalent of a border, and not on American soil.
New Book Alleges Iraq Planning Began Shortly After Sept. 11
"A new book by Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward says that less than three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, President Bush ordered planning for war on Iraq, even though no conclusive evidence has surfaced linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks. The book, titled Plan of Attack, also says that President Bush marginalized Secretary of State Colin Powell, the senior aide who was most skeptical about a war to remove Hussein, and that planning for war on Iraq diverted resources from the Afghan war launched against Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks," the Wall Street Journal reports.
"The issues raised in Woodward's 467-page book are significant because stalwart leadership in the war against terrorism has been Bush's strongest suit, as he heads toward the November election."
In "Iraq: The Wrong War," Director of Defense Policy Studies Charles V. Peña writes: "The war against Iraq was the wrong war because the enemy at the gates was, and continues to be, Al Qaeda. Not only was Iraq not a direct military threat to the United States (even if it possessed WMD, which was a fair assumption), but there is no good evidence to support the claim that Saddam Hussein was in league with Al Qaeda and would have given the group WMD to be used against the United States. In fact, all the evidence suggests the contrary."
UK Does U-turn on EU Constitution
"Tony Blair is set to announce this week that the government will hold a referendum on the new European Union constitution if it is approved by EU heads of government later this year," the Financial Times reports.
"The British government's decision could have a major impact on the debate on the constitution in other EU states. Jacques Chirac, the French president, has been under strong pressure in his own country to call a referendum on the new treaty and Britain's decision could increase it."
In "US-EU: The Constitutional Divide," Marian Tupy, assistant director of Cato's Project on Global Economic Liberty, and Patrick Basham, senior fellow in Cato's Center for Representative Government, write: "The EU constitution makes European government more, not less, remote from the citizenry. The EU's operations are expanded, not streamlined, and its bureaucracy is made more complex, not simpler. There are no cuts to the EU's 97,000 pages of accumulated laws and regulations. The EU's powers are supposedly limited in this document but there is an escape clause in case the Brussels-based bureaucracy ever feels boxed in by popular sentiment. The decisions in Brussels are final and EU laws supersede laws made by national parliaments."
Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org