Bush approach to war on terror under pressure

A federal judge's order this week that 17 Chinese Muslim Uighurs be released from Guantanamo into the United States renewed questions about White House policy of holding people without charges in the US prison in Cuba for years after their capture.

Meanwhile, allegations by two linguists that the National Security Agency listened in on conversations of Americans overseas, including pillow talk, aroused protests over infringements on civil liberties.

"If it proves to be true, I think you'll see further demand for oversight and further demand for control," said James Lewis, a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Only two years ago, the Bush administration could count on public fear of terrorism and a Republican-controlled Congress to support an array of anti-terrorism tactics and programs that tested or exceeded the limits of US law.

Coercive interrogations, indefinite detentions, secret overseas prisons, and warrantless surveillance of phone calls and emails were among the tools used in its no-holds-barred response to the Sept 11 attacks on the United States.

But with the administration near the end of its term, said Lewis, "things are starting to come a little unglued."

"The approach this administration took is breaking down. Some of it is, as it loses its political steam and its credibility, people are willing to speak out."

Greater oversight and political resistance in Congress has forced some compromise but not radical changes in approach, however.

The administration succeeded in amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last year to permit the government to monitor communications that begin or end overseas.