Editing Unlawful combatant (section)

====Military commissions====
{{Main|Military Commissions Act of 2006}}

As of 17 October 2006, when President Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law, Title 10 of the United States Code was amended to include a definition of an "unlawful enemy combatant" as

{{Blockquote|a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the [[United States]] or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the [[Taliban]], [[al-Qaida]], or associated forces); or a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense.}}

The definition of a lawful enemy combatant is also given, and much of the rest of the law sets out the specific procedures for determining whether a given detainee of the U.S. armed forces is an unlawful enemy combatant and how such combatants may or may not be treated in general and tried for their crimes in particular. Among its more controversial provisions, the law stipulates that a non United States citizen held as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination may not seek [[habeas corpus]] relief. Such detainees must simply wait until the military convene a detainee status review tribunal (under the procedures described in the [[Detainee Treatment Act of 2005]]).

Immediately after Bush signed the Act into law, the [[U.S. Justice Department]] notified the [[U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia]] that the Court no longer had jurisdiction over a combined ''habeas'' case that it had been considering since 2004. A notice dated the following day listed 196 other pending habeas cases for which it made the same claim.<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901692.html?nav=rss_nation/special "Court Told It Lacks Power in Detainee Cases", ''Washington Post'']</ref>

Of the first three war crimes cases brought against Guantanamo Bay detainees under the Military Commissions Act, one resulted in a [[plea bargain]] and the two others were dismissed on [[jurisdiction]]al grounds.

On 4 June 2007, in two separate cases, military tribunals dismissed charges against detainees who had been designated as "enemy combatants" but not as "unlawful enemy combatants". The first case was that of [[Omar Khadr]], a [[Canadians|Canadian]] who had been designated as an enemy combatant in 2004. Khadr was accused of throwing a grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002. [[Colonel (United States)|Colonel]] [[Peter Brownback]] ruled that the military tribunals, created to deal with "unlawful enemy combatants", had no jurisdiction over detainees who had been designated only as "enemy combatants". He dismissed without prejudice all charges against Khadr.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Koring |first=Paul |title=U.S. case against Khadr collapses |newspaper=[[The Globe and Mail|Toronto Globe and Mail]] |year=2007 |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070604.wkhadr0604_1/BNStory/International/home |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070606204940/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070604.wkhadr0604_1/BNStory/International/home |archive-date=6 June 2007 }}</ref> Also on 4 June, [[Captain (U.S. Navy)|Captain]] [[Keith J. Allred]] reached the same conclusion in the case of [[Salim Ahmed Hamdan]].<ref name="nytimes.com">{{Cite news| last =Glaberson| first =William | title =Military Judges Dismiss Charges for 2 Detainees| newspaper =[[The New York Times]]| date =5 June 2007| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/world/americas/05gitmo.html?hp}}</ref><ref name=DoDKhadrChargesDismissed20070604>
{{cite news
| url=http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=46281
| title=Charges Dismissed Against Canadian at Guantanamo
| author=Sergeant Sara Wood
| publisher=[[United States Department of Defense]]
| date=4 June 2007
| access-date=2007-06-07
}}</ref><ref name=DoDHamdanChargesDismissed20070604>
{{cite news
| url=http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=46288
| title=Judge Dismisses Charges Against Second Guantanamo Detainee
| author=Sergeant Sara Wood
| publisher=United States Department of Defense
| date=4 June 2007
| access-date=2007-06-07
}}</ref>

The [[United States Department of Defense]] responded by stating: "We believe that Congress intended to grant jurisdiction under the Military Commissions Act to individuals, like Mr. Khadr, who are being held as enemy combatants under existing C.S.R.T. procedures". That position was called "dead wrong" by Specter.<ref name="nytimes.com"/>