[Carol Costello, Cnn Anchor:] We've been talking a lot this morning about dirty bomb suspect Abdullah Al Muhajir. He's the second American being held incommunicado for an indefinite period of time. Our military affairs correspondent, Jamie McIntyre, looks at how the Bush administration is using an expanded definition of "enemy combatant" to lock up people who have not been charged with any crime.
[Jamie Mcintyre, Cnn Correspondent:] American Abdullah Al Muhajir, born Jose Padilla, was moved to a high security Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina over the weekend after President Bush designated him an enemy combatant because the Justice Department faced a deadline to either charge him or let him go.
[John Ashcroft, Attorney General:] We have acted with legal authority both under the laws of war and clear supreme court precedent, which established that the military may detain a United States citizen who has joined the enemy and has entered our country to carry out hostile acts.
[Mcintyre:] Muhajir joins Yasser Esam Hamdi, who was also born in the U.S. but raised in Saudi Arabia, as the second American to be held indefinitely incommunicado without criminal charges or legal council under the Bush administration's definition of enemy combatants. Civil libertarians think it's an outrage.
[Stanley Cohen, Criminal Defense Attorney:] ... so what they've essentially done is said, we think this is a bad guy. We can't prove anything. He's a U.S. citizen. So we're going to ignore his rights and simply put him in the military criminal justice system, military system, and hold him indefinitely.
[Mcintyre:] While Hamdi was captured with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, Muhajir was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, based on U.S. intelligence that he was part of an al Qaeda plot to attack the U.S. with a dirty bomb. Other prisoners, such as American John Walker Lindh, captured with enemy fighters in Afghanistan, and Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen suspected of being the 20th hijacker, have been formally charged. So they both have attorneys and other legal rights. With the priority now on defending the homeland, the U.S. is making clear its willingness to lock away American citizens based on secret intelligence.
[Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary:] We must find them and we must stop them. And when we have them in our control, we must be able to question them about plans for future attacks.
[Mcintyre:] The Pentagon objects to characterizing the detention of Hamdi and now Muhajir as indefinite, arguing that the combatants are eligible to be released at the end of hostilities. But the Pentagon also acknowledges the war against terror may never end, so that distinction may not make much of a difference. Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.