Republicans push for military custody of terror suspects; Obama pushes back

In 2010, House Republicans pledged to "demand an overarching detention policy” for foreign terrorists.

The idea: Keep terror suspects off U.S. soil, and without Miranda rights to remain silent and consult an attorney.

"Foreign terrorists do not have the same rights as American citizens, nor do they have more rights than U.S. military personnel,” the Republicans wrote in their Pledge to America. "We will work to ensure foreign terrorists, such as the 9/11 conspirators, are tried in military, not civilian, court.”

Did they achieve their goal?

The Speaker's Office says Republicans kept the promise with a letter to President Barack Obama and provisions in the 2012 and 2013 National Defense Authorization Acts.

The July 2011 letter from several House committee chairman calls on the president "to define his Administration"s policies on interrogation, detention, and prosecution of terrorists.”

The lawmakers expressed concern that a Somali man suspected of leading an al-Qaida-linked terror group was indicted in civilian court in New York.

It was not an isolated case: During 2009 and 2010, the number of federal criminal terror or national security indictments per year nearly doubled compared with the President George W. Bush administration, according to the Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law. They continued in 2011.

Meanwhile, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012 included Section 1022, "Military custody for foreign al-Qaida terrorists.” Generally, it requires the United States to hold foreign terror suspects in military custody, where they may face trial in military court — or stay indefinitely without trial, military or otherwise.

The defense authorization acts for 2012 and 2013 also prohibit the transfer of terror detainees from Guantanamo to the United States, according to GOP lawmakers.

Now, lawmakers made demands, but that's not to say the Obama administration conceded.

Section 1022 was promptly gutted by a presidential policy directive, according to Golnaz Fakhimi, an attorney for the International Justice Network who litigates on behalf of U.S. detainees in Afghanistan.

Obama issued several national security waivers, outlining a range of circumstances under which the administration wouldn't be required to keep terror suspects in military custody. And even if suspects were held in military custody under Section 1022, his directive said, they could still ultimately be returned to law enforcement for criminal trial. (That's essentially the opposite of ensuring foreign terror suspects would be tried only in military court, as Republican lawmakers pledged.)

"To my knowledge," said Fakhimi, "Section 1022 has not been used in the U.S. since the law was passed.”

Still, Section 1022 remains on the books, and could be enforced in the United States by the next president.

In 2010, House Republicans pledged to "demand an overarching detention policy” for foreign terrorists, saying they would "work to ensure foreign terrorists, such as the 9/11 conspirators, are tried in military, not civilian, court."

They made that demand in a letter to the president, and put into law requirements that foreign terror suspects be held in military custody and that terror detainees at Guantanamo not be transferred to the United States. But given the difficulty they've had getting Obama to comply, we rate this a Compromise.