The Bush administration in 2002 considered sending US troops into a
Buffalo, NY, suburb to arrest a group of terror suspects in what would have been
a nearly unprecedented use of military power, The New York Times
reported.
Vice President Dick Cheney and several other
Bush advisers at the time strongly urged that the military be used to apprehend
men who were suspected of plotting with al-Qaeda, who later became known as the
Lackawanna Six, the Times reported on its website. It cited former
administration officials who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
The proposal advanced to at least one-high
level administration meeting, before President George W Bush decided against
it.
Dispatching troops into the streets is virtually
unheard of. The Constitution and various laws restrict the military from being
used to conduct domestic raids and seize
property.
According to the Times, Cheney and other Bush
aides said an October 23, 2001, Justice Department memo gave broad presidential
authority that allowed Bush to use the domestic use of the military against
al-Qaeda if it was justified on the grounds of national security, rather than
law enforcement.
Among those arguing for the military use
besides Cheney were his legal adviser David S Addington and some senior Defence
Department officials, the Times reported.
Opposing the
idea were Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser; John B Bellinger
III, the top lawyer at the National Security Council; FBI Director Robert S
Mueller III; and Michael Chertoff, then the head of the Justice Department's
criminal division.
Bush ultimately nixed the proposal and
ordered the FBI to make the arrests in Lackawanna. The men were subsequently
arrested and pleaded guilty to terrorism-related
charges.
Scott L Silliman, a Duke University law professor
specializing in national security law, told the Times that a US president had
not deployed the active-duty military on domestic soil in a law enforcement
capacity, without specific statutory authority, since the Civil
War.
AP