John Bellinger, the top legal adviser to the State Department, in London this week, set himself on a mission to explain to critics why the Military Commissions Act signed by President Bush last month should answer their objections.

“I think we have now fixed all the concerns that our Supreme Court raised and the international community raised,” explained Bellinger, who is regarded as one of the more moderate, internationally minded members of the Bush Administration’s legal team.

But for all his fluency — and his direct criticism of the stance of European governments — they don’t seem like budging. Britain, more sympathetic to the US than other leading European governments, has criticised Guantanamo repeatedly.

Margaret Beckett, Foreign Secretary, cited it when introducing the annual Human Rights Report last month, soon after Bush signed the Act. “Our basic position is that we want the thing closed” said a Foreign Office official yesterday.

Bellinger’s first argument is practical, political and peculiar: that the US would sharply cut the numbers held at Guantanamo, which have been hovering near 500, if only other governments would help it to find a home for them.

“We don’t think it’s helpful to keep on saying Guantanamo should be closed, without suggesting how it should be done,” he told The Times. “European governments have a choice. They can keep saying Guantanamo should be closed, but they could also, if they really wanted [that], say ‘we will help you to place these people elsewhere’.”

This argument, a staple of the US Embassy in London, “makes Guantanamo sound like Battersea Dogs’ Home”, said one European official. “To say that the US, having collected them from around the world, now can’t find anyone else to take them, really does not amount to a justification for holding them for five years without charge.”

Only 10 prisoners (or “detainees”, the US term), have been charged, although US officials say that between 60 and 80 may face indictment.

British officials say they agree that the Act addressed some of their complaints about the military trials or “commissions” as initially proposed. In particular, those tried will now have the right to see all the evidence against them.

But critics say that the Act allows some evidence obtained by torture to be introduced. Bellinger argued that this is only where the judge determines it is reliable. He added that he did not expect that the harsh interrogation techniques, which the US has acknowledged using against “high value” al-Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, would be a bar to trial.

Colonel Dwight Sullivan, head of the team of Pentagon-appointed military lawyers who defend the Guantanamo prisoners and who have been among the most searing critics of the procedures, roared with laughter yesterday when asked if the Act provided defendants with adequate rights. “The Act provides for some level of coerced testimony to be admitted,” contrary to British and American legal principles, he said. “I thought we did away with that in the Star Chamber.”

One of the bitterest disputes has been whether prisoners who are not charged can challenge their detention. Bellinger argued that they could do this through the Combatant Status Review Tribunals.

Sullivan retorts that in the tribunals prisoners are not represented by a lawyer, do not have “the meaningful right to confront the evidence against them,” and have “no meaningful right to call witnesses”.

The Guantanamo trials are suspended until mid-January, when Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defence, must spell out the new procedures, but detainees have already mounted legal challenges on several fronts.

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