http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/politics/15detain.html?hp&ex=1134622800&en=27235f7d7c0221cc&ei=5094&partner=homepage
House Backs McCain on Detainees, Defying Bush
By ERIC SCHMITT
Published: December 15, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 - In an unusual bipartisan rebuke to
the Bush administration, the House on Wednesday overwhelmingly endorsed
Senator John McCain's measure to
bar cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners in American custody
anywhere in the world.
Although the vote was
nonbinding, it put the Republican-controlled House on record in support
of Mr. McCain's provision for the first time, at the very moment when
the senator, a Republican, is at a crucial stage of tense negotiations
with the White House, which strongly opposes his measure.
The
vote also likely represents the lone opportunity that House members
will have to express their sentiments on Mr. McCain's legislation. The
Senate approved the measure in October, 90 to 9, as part of a military
spending bill. But until Wednesday, the House Republican leadership had
sought to avoid a direct vote on the measure to avoid embarrassing the
White House.
The vote was on a motion to instruct House
negotiators, who had just been appointed to work out differences
between the House and Senate spending bills, to accept the Senate
position on the McCain amendment.
The House bill, providing
$453 billion for military programs, has no provision like Mr. McCain's,
but if the negotiators follow these instructions to the letter, the
final bill passed by Congress will.
The House vote was 308 to 122, with 107 Republicans lining up along
with almost every Democrat behind Representative John P. Murtha,
the Pennsylvania Democrat who sponsored Mr. McCain's language and who
has become anathema to the administration on any legislative measure
related to Iraq since his call last month to withdraw American troops
from Iraq in six months.
"Torture does not help us win the
hearts and minds of the people it's used against," Mr. Murtha said on
the House floor. "Congress is obligated to speak out."
Unlike
the tumultuous three-hour debate that Mr. Murtha's Iraq-related measure
provoked last month, this measure met with just 10 minutes of
statements to a nearly empty House chamber.
Mr. Murtha, a
former Marine colonel who is the senior Democrat on the House
Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said Mr. McCain's legislation was
essential to standardizing American interrogation methods and sending a
clear signal to the world that the United States condemned the abusive
treatment of detainees.
"If we allow torture in any form," Mr. Murtha said, "we abandon our
honor."
Representative
C. W. Bill Young of Florida, head of the House Appropriations Defense
Subcommittee, was one of 121 Republicans who voted against Mr. McCain's
language. One Democrat, Jim Marshall of Georgia, voted against it; 200
Democrats and one independent supported it.
Mr. Young was quick
to point out that he was in no way endorsing torture as an
interrogation technique, but said he opposed the measure because it
wrongly bestowed the full protections of the Constitution to terrorists
and tied the hands of Congressional negotiators.
Another
Republican who voted against the measure, Representative Todd Tiahrt of
Kansas, said he opposed it because he said laws already barred torture
and abusive treatment.
"It's absolutely unnecessary," said Mr. Tiahrt, who is on the House
Intelligence Committee.
It
was unclear what effects the vote would have on the negotiations
between Mr. McCain and President Bush's national security adviser,
Stephen J. Hadley, and on the Congressional negotiators for
the two
military bills now in conference committee. A spokeswoman for the
Arizona senator, Eileen McMenamin, said Wednesday night that he had no
comment on the vote.
"I don't think it will have any effect on the negotiations," Mr.
Young said.
Mr.
Murtha said the vote bolstered his previous assertions that the
military spending bill would include Mr. McCain's provision after the
conference committee completed its work.
"It's going to be in there, period," Mr. Murtha said after the vote.
Earlier
in the day, Senator Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who is the
senior member of the Appropriations Committee, echoed Mr. Murtha's
prediction, telling reporters that Mr. McCain "wants it in there, and I
think it will stay in there."
The negotiations over provision
intensified on Wednesday. Early in the morning, Mr. McCain met in his
office with Mr. Hadley. When asked whether the two had narrowed their
differences, Mr. McCain told reporters: "We're still talking. We'll get
this resolved one way or another. We have the votes."
Mr.
McCain also attended the weekly Senate Republican policy lunch on
Wednesday, but senators who attended the private gathering said that
Mr. McCain did not address his colleagues and that the subject of his
amendment did not come up.
After the lunch, however, Mr. McCain
was mobbed by reporters seeking comment on his talks with Mr. Hadley.
Mr. McCain was uncharacteristically tight lipped, saying he did not
want to discuss details of the continuing discussions.
Two
Senate Republican colleagues who voted for Mr. McCain's measure in
October said Wednesday it was important for Congress to back the
language.
"We need to have clear guidance, in law, that makes
it very clear that inhumane treatment of detainees in American
captivity is absolutely unacceptable," Susan Collins of Maine said.
"This problem is hurting us around the world. It's contrary to our
values, and we simply must have this as part of the final bill."
Senator
John Thune of South Dakota said: "Because it has become such a
high-profile issue here of late, not only around the country but around
the world, I think it's in our best interests to address it. A strong
unequivocal statement that we don't apply or tolerate torture in any
form is probably right now a good thing to do."
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