By Danny YadronThe Daily Northwestern

A packed conference room in the Evanston Public Library was decorated Saturday with pamphlets on war crimes, declarations for troop withdrawal and petitions to impeach President Bush.

And at the front of the crowd of about 80 stood Northwestern law Prof. Joseph Margulies, who called for giving the Bush administration’s motives the benefit of the doubt even though he opposes its policy.

“If you don’t understand their perspective you’re just lobbing grenades,” Margulies said. “It’s not what we need.”

The professor is the associate director of the MacArthur Justice Center and was head counsel in Rasul v. Bush. The Supreme Court ruling provided certain rights to detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Activist groups Neighbors for Peace and the Chicago chapter of The World Can’t Wait sponsored the event to highlight their assertion that the U.S. practices torture at the detention center in Cuba. Margulies’ speech followed a reading of the play “Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom” by members of the groups.

“We were unsure how many people would turn up because torture is a painful subject,” said Grace Richardson, the organizer of the reading. Richardson also is a member of both of the sponsor organizations.

Although The World Can’t Wait is calling for the impeachment of Bush for war crimes, Margulies said he adamantly disagreed.

“I don’t think we should impeach him,” Margulies said. “I don’t think he had the state of mind to be a war criminal.”

Because the administration viewed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as a failure of intelligence, it was actually its duty to think of how it could gather more intelligence, Margulies said.

The problem was in the execution.

“It was like breaking down a dam and letting the water rush in,” Margulies said. “But the water didn’t know where to go, it just sort of leveled out.”

Margulies’ lecture turned into a forum when Chicago resident Jeffery Schramek interjected

“(Margulies) was assuming good faith and I don’t think (Bush) has earned it,” Schramek said after the event.

Margulies said he is used to such responses.

“I respect all opinions,” he said. “My dad’s a Republican. If we’re going to have peace at the dinner table you have to give each side its due.”

Attendees did start out on the professor’s side.

If prisoners are being held as criminals, they are guaranteed certain legal rights, but if they are held as prisoners of war, their capture is governed by the Geneva Conventions. The Bush administration is ignoring both, Margulies said.

“You cannot in all cases put them beyond both legal regimes,” Margulies said.

Northwestern students are also hearing his message. He spoke on campus last Wednesday and has been working with the political science department’s undergraduate class on constitutional law.

The class is reading excerpts from Margulies’ book, “Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power.”

Margulies said he is planning to visit the lecture in the coming weeks.

Reach Danny Yadron at [email protected].