Bush raps McCain's detainee proposals

WASHINGTON -- In a sharp escalation of the clash between President Bush and one of the nation's top Republicans, Bush used a White House press conference to blast Senator John McCain's proposals for military tribunals and detainee treatment, asserting that they would shut down the CIA's interrogation program for terrorism suspects.

Bush challenged lawmakers to reject the measure the Senate Armed Services Committee approved Thursday, a bill McCain, of Arizona, crafted with two other influential Republican senators. The president wants Congress to create a legal foundation for CIA agents to use coercive interrogation tactics on suspected terrorists, but McCain -- who endured torture as a Vietnam prisoner of war -- has rebuked Bush's efforts on the grounds that they would violate the Geneva Conventions against prisoner abuse.

``Congress has got a decision to make: You want the program to go forward, or not?" Bush told reporters in the Rose Garden session. ``We can debate this issue all we want. But the practical matter is, if our professionals don't have clear standards in the law, the program is not going to go forward."

Bush served notice that he won't back down from McCain. Bush and McCain have had a long, complex relationship; the president defeated McCain in the 2000 GOP primaries, a bitter campaign that left both men scarred politically, but McCain is a high-profile senator with considerable influence.

The fraternal skirmish, which could be settled on the Senate floor as soon as next week, is a distraction from the Republican Party's efforts to stand unified on national-security issues as the midterm congressional elections approach.

But McCain and the coauthors of the bill the committee approved Thursday -- Armed Services chairman John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, and Senator Lindsey O. Graham, Republican of South Carolina -- maintain that their efforts are about larger ideals than politics. The proposed legislation would not alter the Geneva Conventions and would guarantee detainees access to the evidence being used against them.

Bush's move to redefine the Geneva Conventions, they argue, would embolden other countries to create their own definitions of torture and justify the use of coercive tactics on captured US troops. McCain, a Navy combat pilot downed over North Vietnam, has a unique perspective on the subject: His Viet Cong captors at the ``Hanoi Hilton" prison beat him and denied him medical care to force him to talk.

``This is about the lives of American men and women who are serving our country," McCain said Thursday on CNN. ``It's very important, not because we have an election coming up, but because we have men and women who are serving in the military who need every protection we can provide them with."

Graham said yesterday that the president's proposal could endanger members of the US military.

``What is being billed as clarifying our [Geneva] treaty obligations will be seen as withdrawing from the treaty obligations," he said. ``It will set a precedent which could come back to haunt us."

Since the Supreme Court struck down his system of using military tribunals to try detainees on criminal charges, Bush has used the presidential ``bully pulpit" to try to save the tribunals and the CIA interrogation program by specifying acceptable interrogation techniques.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and other high-value suspects are being held at the military's detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and cannot stand trial before special tribunals unless Congress acts.

``Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that Al Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland," Bush said. ``As soon as Congress acts on this bill, the man our intelligence agencies believe helped orchestrate the 9/11 attacks can face justice."

Governor Mitt Romney, one of McCain's possible rivals for the presidential nomination, weighed in yesterday and took the president's side.

``These are terrorists, and we need to have the kind of definition in what the rules will be -- as the Geneva Convention is applied -- to make sure that we don't have people on the front lines who are doing the interrogation and are uncertain as to what those rules are," Romney said after a public appearance in Roxbury. ``I think that the Republicans who have broken ranks with the president made a big mistake."

The Bush administration argues that the Geneva Conventions' ban against ``outrages upon personal dignity" is too vague for CIA interrogators to follow, and would force the program to be shut down. The GOP-controlled House Armed Services Committee is behind the president, and endorsed his proposal on Wednesday in a vote split along party lines.

But the Senate has proved far trickier. He faces a formidable group of Republicans in McCain; Graham, a former military lawyer widely considered a rising GOP star; and Warner, a five-term senator, military veteran, and former Navy secretary who has the respect of both parties for his stewardship of the Armed Services Committee.

And Colin Powell -- a Vietnam veteran, former four-star general, and onetime chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- joined their ranks Thursday. Powell, Bush's highly popular former secretary of state, took the rare step of breaking publicly with the president in a letter supporting the McCain proposal.

With moderate Republicans and virtually all Senate Democrats in favor of the McCain proposal, the White House has few allies in the fight. Democrats have seized the opening to attack Bush on an issue that has long been a Republican strong suit: national security.

``When conservative military men like John McCain, John Warner, Lindsey Graham, and Colin Powell stand up to the president, it shows how wrong and isolated the White House is," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat.

The stand-off is reminiscent of a Bush-McCain clash that occurred late last year, when McCain sought to pass a measure banning torture as a matter of US policy. The White House fought hard to squelch the bill, arguing that it could rob investigators of crucial interrogation techniques.

Bush ultimately signed the measure, but he got the last word: He appended a signing statement saying he would enforce the ban ``in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the president" while still ``protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

The same three Republican senators who are now opposing Bush denounced the signing statement after the Globe reported its existence in January.

With midterm elections less than two months away, Senate Republican leaders seem content to let the matter be settled on the Senate floor. Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell said Democrats could feel pressure to support the president's position because of the importance of the interrogation program.

``I think it would be awkward for Democratic senators to vote in favor of giving classified information to the terrorists," said McConnell, a Kentucky Republican.