JAG CENTRAL

From the NY Times, Senate Republicans Push for a Plan on Ending the War in Iraq:

The Senate is also scheduled to vote Tuesday on a compromise, announced Monday night, that would allow terror detainees some access to federal courts. The Senate had voted last week to prohibit those being held from challenging their detentions in federal court, despite a Supreme Court ruling to the contrary.

Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who is the author of the initial plan, said Monday that he had negotiated a compromise that would allow detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to challenge their designation as enemy combatants in federal courts and also allow automatic appeals of any convictions handed down by the military where detainees receive prison terms of 10 years or more or a death sentence.

UPDATE: Katherine at Obsidian Wings has been the blawgosphere's biggest watchdog on the Graham Amendment, writing her latest post here and posting a copy of the amendment here. You can join in an ongoing discussion about the "amendment to the amendment" at the Volokh Conspiracy by placing a comment (currently 43) to the original post by co-Volokh Conspirator Orin Kerr.

UPDATE II: The Times published this op-ed from Anthony Lewis entitled Prisoners from the Senate, which likens the Graham Amendment to Ex Parte McCardle. Probably not the best comparison to make if you're criticizing a jurisdiction-stripping statute, since the government won in that case.

Also from the Times, Pentagon's Fuel Deal Is Lesson in Risks of Graft-Prone Regions:

Now the two businesses are under scrutiny by Kyrgyz prosecutors and F.B.I. agents who are looking into whether the president at the time, Askar Akayev, and his family pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars, partly from Pentagon fuel contracts, before he was ousted this year.

The family's involvement at the base, a critical site for refueling Air Force aircraft flying over Afghanistan, is a story of everyday cronyism in an impoverished country where the coming of the Americans was seen as a financial windfall for the well connected.

But the case also illustrates the risks of alliances with nations that are unstable and rife with corruption. Mr. Akayev's abrupt departure in March has put the Pentagon in an awkward bind. It needs continued access to the base, but the $207 million spent on fuel contracts has created resentment among the country's new leaders, some of whom contend that the United States knew where the proceeds were going.

From the Washington Post, Senators Agree on Detainee Rights, and Abuse Included Use of Lions, Iraqis Allege:

Two Iraqi men who were arrested in Iraq in 2003 but never charged with crimes say that U.S. troops put them in a cage with lions, pretended to execute them in a firing line and humiliated them during interrogations at multiple detention facilities.

Sherzad Khalid, 35, and Thahe Sabber, 37, say they were brutally beaten over several months at U.S. facilities such as Camp Bucca, Abu Ghraib prison and another detention facility at the Baghdad airport. They said the abuse occurred when they were unable to tell U.S. troops where Saddam Hussein was hiding and did not know about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
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The two men are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First against Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and top military commanders in Iraq. The suit contends that U.S. policies during the war allowed abuse and torture. Both men say that they were tortured and degraded for months before they were released.

From USA Today, Abuse of Detainees Undercuts U.S. Authority, 9/11 Panel Says:

The 10 members recommended the United States work with friendly nations to develop a detainee policy acceptable to all and to give detainees protections they do not currently have.

The 9/11 Commission was disbanded last year. Its members then formed a group called the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, which monitors response to the attacks. This is the group's third report.