By Vicki Allen
Reuters, 19 December 2005
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Monday passed final legislation to ban the torture of detainees and voted to advance the Pentagon $50 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The House passed two separate defense bills, one for funding and one for policies, that contained identical measures initially opposed by President George W. Bush requiring humane treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.
But, in a concession to the White House, the bills curb the ability of inmates at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to challenge their detention in federal court.
The bills also would let information gleaned by coercion be used against Guantanamo inmates.
The funding bill provides $453.3 billion for defense, including $50 billion for the wars until Congress acts on an emergency war supplemental early next year that lawmakers said could be between $80 billion and $100 billion.
The Senate will take up the funding measure this week, with a fight expected over an unrelated measure added to the bill to allow oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge.
The defense policy bill was expected to go to the Senate for final passage later on Monday before being sent to Bush, as Congress rushes to complete its work for the year.
The torture ban represents a congressional rebuke of Bush, who resisted the measure pushed by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.
It was introduced in response to a scandal over the abuse of detainees by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, reports the CIA has run secret prisons abroad, and harsh interrogations in Guantanamo, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Human rights advocates were elated when Bush accepted McCain's amendment after opposing it for months on the grounds it would hamper intelligence-gathering in the U.S. war on terrorism.
But rights advocates said the McCain amendment was partly undercut by the measure limiting Guantanamo inmates' access to courts and allowing use of information obtained by coercion.
CRUEL, INHUMAN TREATMENT BANNED
McCain's amendment bars cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody, and requires that interrogations adhere to standards set by the Army manual.
The White House had wanted more sweeping protections against prosecutions, and Vice President Dick Cheney had pressed to exclude the CIA from the measure.
In negotiations with the White House, McCain only agreed to extend to CIA interrogators the military defense standard of whether a reasonable person would find they were following a lawful order.
Cheney, in an interview on Sunday with ABC News' "Nightline", said he backed legislation to ban inhumane treatment of prisoners, but criticized what he saw as a diminishing commitment by some to do "what's necessary" to defend the country.
"One of the things I'm concerned about is that as we get farther and farther away from 9/11, and there have been no further attacks against the United States, there seems to be less and less concern about doing what's necessary in order to defend the country," Cheney said.
The defense policy bill also puts Congress on record saying that 2006 should be a time of "significant transition" toward full Iraqi sovereignty, with Iraqi forces taking the lead for security and creating conditions for a phased U.S withdrawal.
The Senate approved that resolution overwhelmingly in November in a move that added pressure on Bush to present a plan to end the war.
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Citation: Vicki Allen. "House passes torture ban, war funding," Reuters, 19 December 2005.
Original URL: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2005-12-19T111205Z_01_ARM909576_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-TORTURE.xml&archived=False
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