Washington - The U.S. Defense Department is  now examining a proposal for incorporating certain changes for the military tribunals under the direction of President Bush. The human rights commission and pressure from the foreign governments have forced President Bush to consider new changes. 

The proposed changes were given in a draft manual for the tribunals and circulated among the Pentagon lawyers have, in fact,  attracted strong criticism from federal states, foreign governments and human rights commission.

The changes comprise intensification of rights of the defendants, to establish more independent judges to lead the panels and barring confession obtained by torture.
The draft is designed after the Manual for Court-Martial, written under the guidance of Maj. Gen. John D. Altenburg Jr, retired as Pentagon official in charge of the tribunals.

The proposals, however, gained impetus after final discussions, which were held last year. The discussion board also included officials of the Pentagon, the National Security Council and a representative from the office of the White House Counsel.

According to New York Times (Tim Golden), the proposals would generally move the tribunals - formally known as military commissions - more into line with the judicial standards applied to members of the American military in traditional courts-martial, officials said. Many military lawyers have privately urged such a shift since President Bush first authorized the commissions after Sept. 11.

The New York Times adds that the administration's willingness to restructure the commissions, which have been a central part of its strategy for fighting terrorism, is uncertain. Some officials said they considered the proposals premature because a lawsuit challenging the legality of the commissions is now in a federal appeals court.

In addition, some of the White House aides who supported changes to the commissions have recently moved to new jobs, leaving behind a small but powerful group of officials, led by Vice President Dick Cheney and his staff, who have opposed changing to the commission rules unless forced to do so by the courts, officials said.

"There are a number of folks who would like to make changes," one Pentagon official said of the rules governing the military commissions. But, the official added, "Cheney is still driving a lot of this."

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