Torture ban deal said to be near
Agreement will be reached, Frist says
WASHINGTON -- Congress will reach an agreement with the White House on a defense bill that would ban the torture and inhumane treatment of detainees, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, said yesterday.
Frist said on Fox News yesterday that negotiators were discussing the issue of ''degrading" suspects.
The amendment -- pushed by Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican -- had passed the Senate 90 to 9, but the White House fiercely opposed it. Vice President Dick Cheney led an unsuccessful bid to exempt the CIA from the torture ban, saying it would hinder the war on terrorism.
''I think there will be clarification of what we mean, how aggressive can one be to get information?" said Frist, who did not specify what would be banned. ''What does degrading mean? Do you not want to degrade a terrorist, not hurt them, but degrade them, if they are going to take out your family, if they are going to assassinate you? That's the question that is being worked out."
Frist voted for the amendment pushed by McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
''An agreement will be reached, and we will come to some understanding, which will allow us in ways consistent with our values, that is legal, to get the appropriate information to protect us," the Tennessee Republican said.
Senator Lindsey Graham said the Bush administration and amendment supporters were still negotiating. ''We're not close to a deal," he said on NBC's ''Meet the Press."
''There is a breakdown along how to best protect the troops," the South Carolina Republican said, when asked if the White House was seeking immunity for possible past torture. ''There is a philosophical difference here I don't want to divulge.
''The vice president is not the vice president of torture," he said. ''He is trying to create exemptions, in my opinion, to protect our people who go too far."
A congressional aide said Thursday that Republicans in the House had accepted the amendment.
President Bush and other top administration officials say the United States does not condone torture. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was dogged by the issue on a European trip last week because of reports of secret CIA prisons in East European countries and the covert transportation of prisoners. Rights groups say incommunicado detention often leads to torture.
The White House has argued that putting the antitorture rules into law would hamper interrogators' ability to obtain information from prisoners by making them less fearful.
Supporters say the amendment would protect US forces. ''If we're going to teach the Iraqis ethics and values and close down these secret prisons, we've got to practice what we preach," Graham said. ''And if we exempt our own troops from the application of international or domestic law, then we will set in motion forces that will hurt our troops in future conflicts."
McCain's amendment won broad support in the wake of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and harsh interrogation practices at Guantanamo Bay. It faces final passage in the House and Senate as Congress scrambles to conclude business this week. 