Officials Struggling With Lindh Case

As Navy Seabees on Sunday raced to build a detention facility for Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners, Marine lawyers grappled with the political and legal complexities presented by the case of a young American captured while fighting for the Taliban.

John Walker Lindh, who was brought Friday to this dusty Marine outpost dubbed Camp Rhino, was being classified by the U.S. as a “battlefield detainee” pending a decision on whether to treat him as a prisoner of war or what is called an “illegal combatant.” The latter is a euphemism for terrorist.

Another possibility was to charge Lindh, 20, with violating a U.S. law banning citizens from serving in foreign armies. But that might allow the case to be handled in civil rather than military courts, which the military might oppose.

Lindh is receiving medical care and is isolated under 24-hour armed guard, according to Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Stewart Upton. The Marines declined to let reporters interview or photograph Lindh, saying that might be similar to the “parading” of American prisoners during the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars, actions that the U.S. denounced as barbaric violations of the Geneva Conventions.

Lindh, from Marin County, was studying in Pakistan when he became enamored of the Taliban and joined the fundamentalists’ army. He was wounded last month during a prison battle near Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan.

Marine officials said they hoped to move Lindh soon, but it was unclear Sunday when or where he would be transferred, as lawyers here and officials at the Pentagon and at Marine Corps headquarters conferred about a case that has few precedents. “We want to get this guy away from here, away from people on the front lines who are doing the fighting,” said a Marine Corps legal expert.

In Washington, Vice President Dick Cheney and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Lindh was being given all the rights afforded to prisoners of war, although, as an American citizen, he is not technically a POW.

“I have trouble--I think like many Americans do--understanding why somebody who grew up in this country would ultimately find themselves in Afghanistan fighting with the Taliban and the Al Qaeda,” Cheney said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said on ABC’s “This Week” that Lindh appeared to be the only American taken prisoner while fighting for the Taliban. He said there were rumors of two other American Taliban, “but to the best of our knowledge, those rumors are inaccurate.”

Signs that the troops at Camp Rhino were getting ready for a large number of prisoners were unmistakable Sunday.

Earthmoving equipment screeching like angry dinosaurs moved enormous mounds of powdery desert soil outside the southern edge of the walled compound in preparation for construction of a makeshift detention facility.

The religious overtones of the U.S. war on terrorism were a theme at the Protestant and Roman Catholic services held in the middle of the compound. In both services, comparisons were offered between John the Baptist and the Marines.

Navy chaplain Lt. James West, 45, a Lutheran, noted that like John, “we, too, are in the desert hearing the word of God.”

Maj. Beau Higgins, 34, an intelligence officer and a Catholic lay minister, said John “went into the battlefield to clear the way, the first to fight, just like the Marines.”

Higgins, educated at Jesuit schools, told reporters that he once thought of entering a religious order but decided to become a Marine. “I consider the Marine Corps as kind of like the Jesuits, a small, hard-core group,” he said.

Marine officials are concerned about complacency setting in as life at the base becomes routine.

Sgt. Maj. Steven Lara, 40, of Coolidge, Ariz., said he’s pleased with the spirit shown by the younger Marines. He visited 40 foxhole positions to gauge the level of grousing.

“I didn’t find a single one where they asked when we’re going home,” said Lara, a 21-year veteran. “A lot of them asked when we’re going north,” toward Kandahar.

Marines assigned to guard the camp’s perimeter during the chilly nights against intruders--the Afghans who were specialized in nighttime attacks during their war against the Soviets in the 1980s--were warned to stay alert. “The weather is bad but the cause is good,” said Cpl. David McGrinn, 21, of St. Cloud, Fla.

“It’s kind of nervous but fun at the same time, getting to do our job, what we’ve been training for,” said Lance Cpl. Raymond Contreras, 23, of Los Angeles. “You realize this ain’t Camp Pendleton, it’s real life.”

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Staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this report.