WASHINGTON - The Senate voted yesterday to ban waterboarding and other controversial interrogation tactics used by the CIA, matching a previous House vote and putting Congress on a collision course with the White House over a pivotal national security issue.
In a 51-to-45 vote, the Senate passed an intelligence bill that limits the CIA to using 19 less aggressive interrogation tactics outlined in the US Army Field Manual. The measure would effectively ban the use of simulated drowning, temperature extremes, forced standing, and other controversial tactics that the CIA used on Al Qaeda prisoners following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
President Bush has vowed to veto the legislation, which the House approved in December, and Congress may not have enough votes to override the veto.
The vote followed two weeks of public debate over the agency's use of waterboarding on three Al Qaeda prisoners. It also occurred in the same week that the Bush administration announced plans to try six prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for alleged involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. Five of the six were subjected to controversial CIA tactics.
Congress previously banned any military use of waterboarding and other controversial tactics through the Detainee Treatment Act of 2006, which was cosponsored by John McCain, a Republican of Arizona and a GOP presidential candidate.
But McCain sided with the Bush administration yesterday on the ban passed by the Senate, saying in a statement that the measure goes too far by applying military standards to intelligence agencies. He also said current laws forbid waterboarding.
Two Democratic presidential contenders, Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, have said waterboarding is clearly illegal and should be banned, but neither voted yesterday because they were campaigning elsewhere.
