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Politics

White House, Senate clash on terror bill

GOP senators say they want a compromise to the White House plan on tough CIA interrogations.

By TIMES WIRES
Published September 14, 2006

WASHINGTON - The White House and three powerful GOP senators were at an impasse Wednesday over a Bush administration plan to allow tough CIA interrogations, underscoring election-season divisions among Republicans on the high profile issue of security.

In a challenge to President Bush, Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said his panel would meet today to finalize an alternative to the White House plan to prosecute terror suspects and redefine acts that constitute war crimes. Warner, R-Va., said the administration proposal would lower the standard for the treatment of prisoners, potentially putting U.S. troops at risk should other countries retaliate.

The stalemate came about after the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would enable the administration to continue a warrantless wiretapping program that the White House launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Earlier, Republicans on the committee blocked an amendment by Democrats that would have limited Bush's eavesdropping program and required the National Security Agency to report more often to Congress on its surveillance activities.

Warner's alternative proposal on CIA interrogations drew fire from the White House, which said the proposal would undermine the nation's ability to interrogate prisoners and arranged a conference call for reporters in which the nation's top intelligence official criticized Warner's plan.

"If this draft legislation were passed in its present form, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency has told me that he did not believe that the (interrogation) program could go forward," national intelligence director John Negroponte told reporters.

The public dispute between the White House and the senators comes as Republicans face a Democratic challenge this November for control in Congress.

The GOP is trying to win voters with its tough stance on national security, and Bush has said legislation allowing him to prosecute terrorists is a key component to winning the war.

But the GOP deadlock left the fate of Bush's proposal unclear.

The dispute echoed last year's showdown between Bush and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., over legislation banning cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees. The White House threatened to veto that proposal, contending the language would hamstring interrogators, but eventually bowed to overwhelming congressional support for McCain's measure.

McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have joined Warner this year in opposing Bush's bill.

Bush's latest proposal would create military commissions to prosecute terror suspects and would redefine acts that constitute war crimes.

Bush was forced to propose the measure after the Supreme Court ruled in June that his existing court system established to prosecute terrorism suspects was illegal and violated the Geneva Conventions.

The court ruled that Common Article 3 of the conventions, which sets a baseline standard for the treatment of prisoners of war, applies to members of al-Qaida - an assertion Bush had disputed. Since then, Congress and the administration have been drafting legislation that would authorize Bush to continue with the military commissions.

[Last modified September 14, 2006, 05:47:40]