Washington ? The Pentagon set rules Thursday for detainee trials that could allow terror suspects to be convicted and perhaps executed using hearsay testimony and coerced statements, setting up a new clash between President Bush and Congress.

The rules are fair, said the Pentagon, which released them in a manual for the expected trials. Democrats controlling Congress said they would hold hearings and revive legislation on the plan, and human rights organizations complained that the regulations would allow evidence that would not be tolerated in civilian or military courtrooms.

According to the 238-page manual, a detainee’s attorney could not reveal classified evidence in the person’s defense until the government had a chance to review it. Suspects would be allowed to view summaries of classified evidence, not the material itself.

The new regulations lack some protections used in civilian and military courtrooms, such as against coerced or hearsay evidence. They are intended to track a law restoring Bush’s plans to have special military commissions try terror-war prisoners. Those commissions had been struck down earlier in the year by the Supreme Court.

At a Pentagon briefing, Dan Dell’Orto, deputy to the Defense Department’s top counsel, said the new rules will “afford all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized people.”

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he planned to scrutinize the manual to ensure that it does not “run afoul” of the Constitution.

Officials think that with the evidence they have now, they could eventually charge 60 to 80 detainees.

There are almost 400 people suspected of ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban being held at the military’s prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. About 380 others have been released since the facility was opened five years ago.