WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is oiling up legal machinery that hasn't been used since World War II as another weapon in the war on terrorism: special military tribunals to try selected terrorist suspects.
Defense Department lawyers are putting finishing touches on guidelines for prosecuting suspected terrorists and al-Qaida fighters for war-crimes violations, said Maj. Ted Wadsworth, a Pentagon spokesman.
By the end of the year, the guidelines may be ready, including a definition of war-crimes offenses. Each military service is putting together teams of officers who will act as judge and jury, and military lawyers who will serve as prosecutors and defense counsel, Wadsworth said.
But the Defense Department won't say when the first tribunals will be held or who will be prosecuted, though the first candidates are likely to come from the more than 600 captives held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and hundreds held in or near Afghanistan.
"This is a system that's coming back to life after 50 years, and the task will be to protect national security while gaining public confidence that it's fair - and that includes European allies and the Muslim world," said Eugene Fidell, president of the nonpartisan National Institute of Military Justice.
Two captured al-Qaida leaders who allegedly had key roles in the Sept. 11 attacks - Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi Binalshibh - are likely to face military trials eventually, but there's no rush to prosecute them, said an official familiar with their cases who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Bush administration has moved slowly since President Bush signed an executive order more than a year ago to revive military trials. That's because the overriding priority in dealing with all the captives is to squeeze them for information and prevent future attacks, not prosecute them, say Pentagon and intelligence officials.
When military trials begin, a little-known part of the U.S. justice system will be scrutinized by the world.
Using heavy secrecy and streamlined rules of evidence, military trials will not provide defendants with as much protection as in federal court. Secondhand and hearsay evidence, for example, is allowed.
Defendants will be charged with war-crimes violations and given a military lawyer, or they can hire an outside lawyer. Those on trial can review the evidence against them, but some information may be withheld for security reasons, or only the lawyers will be allowed to see it.
U.S. military trials for war crimes have not been held since German and Japanese leaders, officials and soldiers were prosecuted in the 1940s. Those defendants were part of a nation's forces, unlike the "nonstate actors" of al-Qaida who have declared jihad, or holy war, on the United States.
"We're using old legal principles and applying them in new ways," said Ruth Wedgewood, a Yale international law professor and adviser to the Defense Department.
Wedgewood defends one of the controversial elements of the war-crimes offenses - that membership in and allegiance to al-Qaida and its jihad may constitute a separate criminal charge.
"It's a conspiracy to wage unlawful war, and the charge would reflect that many people are held not for a particular action but because they are sleepers," Wedgewood said.