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Bush to accept new torture policy
After months of resistance, the White House has agreed to accept Senator John McCain's call for a law specifically banning cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of foreign suspects in the war on terror, several congressional officials say.
Under the emerging deal, CIA and other civilian interrogators would be given the same legal rights as are currently guaranteed to members of the military who are accused of breaking interrogation guidelines, these officials added.
The congressional officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they did not want to pre-empt an expected announcement later in the day at the White House, possibly by George Bush, the US president, and McCain.
These officials also cautioned the agreement was encountering opposition in the House from Republican Representative Duncan Hunter, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
A spokesman for Hunter said negotiations were ongoing.
But Repubilcan Senator John Warner, Hunter's counterpart in the Senate, was said to be on board. And his spokesman, John Ullyot, said: "Senator Warner is meeting with Chairman Hunter to work out the refinements."
Uniform guidelines
A day earlier, the House endorsed the Senate-passed ban, agreeing that the United States needed to set uniform guidelines for the treatment of prisoners in the war on terror and to make clear that US policy prohibits torture.
More
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/05291DBC-C89B-47C6-80CC-CBC1503E2D06.htm
The congressional officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they did not want to pre-empt an expected announcement later in the day at the White House, possibly by George Bush, the US president, and McCain.
These officials also cautioned the agreement was encountering opposition in the House from Republican Representative Duncan Hunter, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
A spokesman for Hunter said negotiations were ongoing.
But Repubilcan Senator John Warner, Hunter's counterpart in the Senate, was said to be on board. And his spokesman, John Ullyot, said: "Senator Warner is meeting with Chairman Hunter to work out the refinements."
Uniform guidelines
A day earlier, the House endorsed the Senate-passed ban, agreeing that the United States needed to set uniform guidelines for the treatment of prisoners in the war on terror and to make clear that US policy prohibits torture.
More
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/05291DBC-C89B-47C6-80CC-CBC1503E2D06.htm
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Friday December 16, 2005
The Guardian
The White House bowed to international and congressional pressure yesterday and abandoned its opposition to Senate legislation prohibiting the use of cruel, inhuman or degrading interrogation methods of detainees in US custody around the world.
President Bush had threatened to veto the legislation, proposed by Senator John McCain, on the grounds that it tied his hands in the "war on terror" but the White House agreed to accept the bill after an overwhelming majority in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives backed the McCain amendment on Wednesday night.
"We've sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists," Senator McCain said, sitting next to the president in the Oval Office yesterday. "This will help us enormously in winning the hearts and minds of the people throughout the world in winning the war on terror."
Mr Bush said the agreement will "make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention of torture, whether it be here at home or abroad".
The bipartisan front by the Senate and the House was one element in a formidable show of defiance by Congress over the White House's conduct of the war on terror. Republican senators also joined Democrats to demand facts about secret CIA prisons abroad, while moderate Republican senators threatened to block anti-terror legislation on the grounds that it infringed civil liberties.
More
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1668768,00.html