The Associated Press
House and Senate negotiators working on an intelligence bill have agreed to limit CIA interrogators to techniques approved by the military, which would effectively bar them from using such harsh methods as waterboarding, congressional aides said Wednesday.
Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees decided to include the ban while working out differences in their respective bills authorizing 2008 spending for intelligence programs, according to the aides, who spoke anonymously because the negotiations were private. Details of the bill are to be made public Thursday.
That will set the stage for another veto fight with President Bush, who last summer issued an executive ordered allowing the CIA to use “enhanced interrogation techniques” that go beyond what’s allowed in the 2006 Army Field Manual.
The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 prohibited cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment for all detainees in U.S. custody, including CIA prisoners. CIA Director Michael Hayden last year prohibited the use of waterboarding, which simulates drowning, but has been publicly silent on other interrogation techniques.
(Original Article)