U.S. Says Detainees Can’t Mount Challenge

WASHINGTON

The Bush administration argued that a newly enacted law wipes out hundreds of pending court cases by detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who are challenging their confinement.

In papers filed with a federal appeals court, the Justice Department said the Detainee Treatment Act signed by President Bush on Dec. 30 restricted detainees’ rights to reviews by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia.

The reviews are limited, said the Justice Department, to the question of whether the detainees have been correctly categorized by the U.S. military as enemy combatants.