By Jane Sutton

MIAMI, June 8 (Reuters) - The Pentagon has declared the Guantanamo war crimes trials a national priority and will more than double the number of military lawyers assigned to them, even as critics say the government is rushing because it wants to influence the November U.S. presidential elections.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, legal adviser to the Pentagon appointee overseeing the trials, told journalists visiting Guantanamo that about 108 uniformed military lawyers would be added to the prosecution and defense teams in the next three months.

The two teams currently each have 19 military lawyers and nine military paralegals, he said. Each side will get 20 to 25 more uniformed lawyers and 20 to 25 more paralegals, and the defense will also get more than a dozen analysts.

"Very recently and consistently with past practice the Department of Defense has made the determination that providing fair, just and transparent trials in these commissions is the No. 1 obligation for legal services in the Department of Defense," Hartmann said.

The announcement came hours before last Thursday's arraignment of five accused al Qaeda prisoners who could be executed if convicted of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks.

Pressed for details on the timing, Hartmann said, "I don't know that it always wasn't the No. 1 priority but I know that it was formally declared the No. 1 priority in the last two or three weeks" by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England.

Prosecutors and especially defense lawyers have complained for years about a lack of manpower and resources in the widely criticized Guantanamo legal system created by the Bush administration to try suspected al Qaeda operatives outside the regular civilian and military courts.

More than six years after the United States began sending captives to the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba, not one case has gone to trial. One was resolved when Australian captive David Hicks pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism in a deal that averted trial and limited his sentence to nine months in prison.

Nineteen cases are now pending, including some that have been delayed repeatedly amid challenges to the legality of the Guantanamo court.

'POLITICAL MEDDLING'

A former chief prosecutor, who quit in October because of what he characterized as meddling by political appointees, complained that prosecutors were being pushed to get the accused Sept. 11 plotters' cases moving before the November U.S. presidential election.

Prosecutors want to start those trials in September, and a judge rejected defense lawyers' pleas to delay Thursday's arraignment until they had had more time to meet with the defendants. One military lawyer was only granted a security clearance to speak to his client the night before the hearing.

Defense lawyers called it "shameful" that they were not allowed more time to prepare, and human rights observers also questioned the sudden rush.

"All of these men have been in U.S. custody for more than five years," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch. "That the government has chosen this particular moment to initiate their prosecutions sets off alarm bells."

The Supreme Court is expected to decide this month whether the Guantanamo prisoners have the right to go before U.S. federal judges to challenge their years-long detention.

At issue is a law that President George W. Bush pushed through the Republican-led Congress in 2006 that took away the habeas corpus rights of the terrorism suspects to seek judicial review of their imprisonment.

The cases before the court do not address broader questions such as the legality of the Guantanamo court system or whether the prison should be closed. But the presidential candidates of both major U.S. parties have said they would shut it down. (Additional reporting by James Vicini; Editing by Tom Brown and Alan Elsner)

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