WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to decide quickly whether foreign terror suspects can challenge their confinement in U.S. courts.

The government's request to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit follows conflicting rulings last month by two federal judges in lawsuits filed by detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green said the detainees could pursue legal challenges, declining to throw out suits by 54 people who are being held at the Navy base in Cuba. Her colleague on the federal bench in Washington, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, dismissed suits by seven other detainees, saying ``no viable legal theory exists'' for a court to order the detainees' release.

``Two district courts in this circuit, only weeks apart, have written lengthy, thorough opinions supporting opposite conclusions,'' the administration said in its petition to the appeals court.

Foreigners from about 40 different countries have been held in Cuba - some for more than three years - without being charged with any crime. They were mainly swept up in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

The government contends the prisoners are dangerous ``enemy combatants'' who, because they are foreigners, are not entitled to the same constitutional protections as Americans.

Judges are trying to sort out detainee rights following a landmark Supreme Court ruling last summer that federal courts are open to appeals on behalf of the foreigners.

The administration also suggested that the court could combine this appeal with another detainee case it will consider because the issues in both ``substantially overlap.'' The government is appealing another lower court ruling that said a Yemeni man who was Osama bin Laden's driver cannot be tried by a military commission without first determining if he is a prisoner of war.

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02/09/05 18:20 EST