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A federal judge yesterday questioned the Bush administration's broad definition of its powers to indefinitely imprison alleged Taliban and al Qaeda fighters at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, especially those who have never taken up arms against the United States. U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green's questions came as the Defense Department argued during a hearing that it has properly imprisoned 550 people as "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay, based on at least some evidence that they were Taliban or al Qaeda members or assisted or supported terrorist groups. Government lawyers, who are asking Green to dismiss the claims of 54 Guantanamo detainees who have challenged their imprisonment, said yesterday that a federal court should not micromanage the president's war on terrorism. "The military has an interest in holding people who pose a risk," Brian Boyle, principal deputy associate attorney general, said of the Pentagon's decision to hold some people for nearly three years. "We're not detaining these people just because there's some enjoyment in it." But Green, who is overseeing the detainee cases that followed a landmark Supreme Court ruling in June, pressed the government to acknowledge that the broad definition of "enemy combatant" could ensnare scores of seemingly benign people in military prison cells indefinitely. "If a little old lady in Switzerland writes checks to what she thinks is a charitable organization for Afghanistan orphans, but it's really supporting . . . al Qaeda, is she an enemy combatant?" the judge asked. Boyle said the woman could be, but it would depend on her intentions. "It would be up to the military to decide as to what to believe," he said. [more]