In September 2002, as Yemeni-born men from Lackawanna, New York, were being accused of training at an Afghan camp affiliated to Osama bin Laden, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argued the men should be treated as "enemy combatants," the weekly magazine reported.

"They are the enemy, and they're right here in the country," Cheney said, according to a participant in the debate over how to treat the suspects, Newsweek reported.

The men should be thrown into a military brig with no right to trial or even to see a lawyer, Cheney and Pentagon argued, while Attorney General John Ashcroft contended that he could prosecute them for providing material support to al-Qaeda. The men pleaded guilty to that charge last year.

The debate over treatment of Americans with suspected ties to al-Qaeda became so heated that there were shouting matches inside the White House, Newsweek reported.

US officials have settled on informal rules to decide whether a detained US citizen should be thrown into a brig or brought to trial, the magazine said.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether Americans can be held as enemy combatants next week.

Two Americans have been branded as such.

Yaser Hamdi, who was raised in Saudi Arabia, has been held at a US naval base since US troops captured him in Afghanistan.

The second man, Jose Padilla, was arrested in Chicago and is accused of planning to explode in the United States a so-called "dirty bomb" that would scatter radioactive material with a conventional explosion.

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