US President George W. Bush embraced Republican Senator John McCain's proposal to ban cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of terrorism suspects, reversing months of opposition that included White House veto threats.
Bowing to pressure from the Republican-run Congress and abroad, the White House on Thursday signed off on the proposal after a fight that pitted the president against members of his own party and threatened to further tarnish a national image already soiled by the abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
Bush said the ban and accompanying interrogation standards will "make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention of torture, whether it be here at home or abroad."
After months of fierce negotiations, McCain declared "a done deal" that he said shows that the US "upholds values and standards of behavior and treatment of all people, no matter how evil or bad they are."
"We've sent a message to the world that the US is not like the terrorists," the Republican lawmaker said while appearing alongside the president in the Oval Office to announce the agreement.
The agreement still needs to be approved by Congress, whose Republican leaders hope to adjourn for the year in a few days.
The deal keeps McCain's original proposal, which was overwhelmingly approved by the Senate and then endorsed by the House. One of the final stumbling blocks in negotiations was removed when language was added allowing civilian interrogators the same legal protections as those afforded to military interrogators.
Those rules say the accused can defend themselves by arguing it was reasonable for them to believe they were obeying a legal order. The government also would provide counsel for accused interrogators.
That language was McCain's own counterproposal to the White House's early calls, pushed by Vice President Dick Cheney, for an exemption for CIA interrogators. The administration had also sought some kind of protection from prosecution for agents that were accused of violating standards.
Also added, officials said, was a statement explicitly rejecting immunity for those who violate the standards.
After the deal was announced, Republican Representative Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he would block completion of one of the two defense bills that includes the ban unless he got White House assurances that "the same high level of effective intelligence gathering" would be achieved if the agreement became law.
Hunter issued a statement early yesterday saying he had dropped his objection because National Intelligence Director John Negroponte wrote in a letter that he would report to Congress six months after the ban goes into effect on its impact on intelligence gathering.
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