A rebellious Senate committee defied US President George W. Bush on Thursday and approved terror-detainee legislation he has vowed to block, deepening Republican conflict over the issue during congressional election campaigns.
Senator John Warner, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, pushed the measure through his panel by a 15-9 vote, with three other Republican lawmakers joining the opposition Democrats. The vote set the stage for a showdown on the Senate floor as early as next week.
Earlier in the day, Bush had journeyed to Congress to attempt to nail down support for his own version of the legislation.
"I will resist any bill that does not enable this program to go forward with legal clarity," Bush said at the White House after his meeting with lawmakers.
The president's measure would go further than the Senate package in allowing classified evidence to be withheld from defendants in terror trials, using coerced testimony and protecting US interrogators against legal prosecution for using methods that violate the Geneva Conventions.
The internal Republican struggle intensified along other fronts, too, as Colin Powell, the secretary of state during Bush's first administration, declared his opposition to the president's plan.
"The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism," Powell -- a retired general who is also a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- wrote in a letter.
Powell said that Bush's bill, by redefining the kind of treatment the Geneva Conventions allow, "would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk."
Firing back, White House spokesman Tony Snow said Powell was confused about the White House plan. Later, Snow said he probably shouldn't have used that word.
"I know that Colin Powell wants to beat the terrorists too," Snow said.
Countering Powell's letter, the administration produced one the current secretary of state wrote to Warner. In it, Condoleezza Rice wrote that narrowing the standards for detainee treatment as Bush has proposed "would add meaningful definition and clarification to vague terms in the treaties."
In his committee's vote, Warner was supported by Republican Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins. Warner, McCain and Graham had been among the most active senators opposing Bush's plan, and the vote by the moderate Collins underscored that there might be broad enough Republican support to successfully take on Bush on the floor of the Republican-run Senate.
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