Request to Pull Guantanamo Lawyer Plan (AP)

Source: Associated Press

Request to Pull Guantanamo Lawyer Plan

By PETE YOST
The Associated Press
Sunday, April 29, 2007; 11:32 AM

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is trying to evade
responsibility for problems at the Guantanamo Bay prison by falsely
blaming defense lawyers for the trouble, the New York City Bar says.

The group's president leveled the criticism in asking Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales to abandon a Justice Department proposal to limit
lawyers' access to the nearly 400 detainees.

In a court filing this month, the department said attorney access via
the mail system has "enabled detainees' counsel to cause unrest on
the base by informing detainees about terrorist attacks."

-snip-

"This is an astonishing and disingenuous assertion," the association
president, Barry M. Kamins, wrote Gonzales.

-snip-

"Blaming counsel for the hunger strikes and other unrest is a
continuation of a disreputable and unwarranted smear campaign
against counsel," according to the letter Friday.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042900545.html