The two separate lawsuits, seeking a federal court hearing on the validity of the open-ended detention, were combined by the Federal District Court here.

Last week the Supreme Court changed that, ruling that open-ended detention of Mariel Cubans was illegal.

And while foreign-policy officials emphasized the diplomatic costs of the open-ended detentions, none of the officials wanted to take responsibility for releasing a potentially dangerous prisoner.

The emergency regulations governing the joint Iraqi and American crackdown permit arrests without warrants and open-ended pretrial detentions, the report said.

Since 9/11, the Bush record has been a retrogressive muddle of open-ended preventive detention and ginned-up lawyers' rationales for operating beyond the Bill of Rights.

And last year, the Supreme Court rejected the administration's claim that those labeled "enemy combatants" were not entitled to judicial review of their open-ended detention.

With its totalitarian overtones and prospect of open-ended detention, to say nothing of its circuitous logic, the case would seem to be on a docket in Iraq or China.

In November 2003, Mr. Chertoff, then a federal judge, delivered a widely noted speech in which he said the policy of open-ended detentions for terror suspects needed to be changed.

The court has agreed to decide whether detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are entitled to access to civilian courts to challenge their open-ended detention.

Later this year, probably before its winter recess, the court will decide whether to hear a United States citizen's challenge to his open-ended detention as an "enemy combatant."