Democrats and human rights advocates criticized US President George W. Bush's veto of a bill that would have banned the CIA from using simulated drowning and other coercive interrogation methods to gain information from suspected terrorists.
Bush said such tactics have helped foil terrorist plots. Critics likened some methods to torture and said they sullied the US' reputation around the world.
"This president had the chance to end the torture debate for good, yet he chose instead to leave the door open to use torture in the future," said Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
She said Bush, who announced the veto on Saturday in his weekly radio address, ignored the advice of 43 retired generals and admirals and 18 national security experts, including former secretaries of state and national security advisers, who supported the bill.
"Torture is a black mark against the United States," she said.
The bill would have limited the CIA to 19 interrogation techniques that are used by the military and spelled out in the Army Field Manual. Bush said he vetoed the measure because it is important for the CIA to have a separate and classified interrogation program for suspected terrorists who possess critical information about possible plots against the US.
Bush said the program had helped stop plots against a Marine camp in Djibouti and the US consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, and plans to fly passenger planes into a Los Angeles tower or London's Heathrow Airport and city buildings.
"Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that al-Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland," he said.
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the nation's ability to lead the world depends on its morality, not military might.
"We will begin to reassert that moral authority by attempting to override the president's veto next week," said Pelosi, a Democrat.
Based on the margin of passage in each chamber, it may prove difficult for the Democratic-controlled Congress to turn back Bush's veto. It takes a two-thirds majority, and the vote was 222 to 199 in the House and 51 to 45 in the Senate.
Bush said he did not veto the bill specifically over waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning.
The Army banned the use of waterboarding or sensory deprivation on uncooperative prisoners in 2006. The CIA, which also prohibited the practice in 2006, has acknowledged using waterboarding on three suspected terrorists in 2003.
"My disagreement ... is not over any particular interrogation technique. For instance, it is not over waterboarding, which is not part of the current CIA program," Bush said in his veto message to the House.
The attorney general has deemed that program legal under domestic and international law, he said.
Still, waterboarding, which involves strapping a person down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to simulate drowning, remains in the CIA's tool kit. The technique can be used, but it requires the consent of the attorney general and president on a case-by-case basis.
"I cannot sign into law a bill that would prevent me and future presidents from authorizing the CIA to conduct a separate, lawful intelligence program, and from taking all lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack," Bush said in a statement.
Democrats say the CIA should be restricted to the techniques in the Army Field Manual. They include the "good cop-bad cop" routine; making prisoners think they are in another country's custody; and separating a prisoner from others for up to 30 days.
In addition to waterboarding, the field manual prohibits hooding prisoners or putting duct tape across their eyes; stripping prisoners naked; and forcing prisoners to perform or mimic sexual acts. It also prohibits beating, burning or physically hurting prisoners in other ways; subjecting them to hypothermia or mock executions.
It does not allow food, water and medical treatment to be withheld. Dogs may not be used in any aspect of interrogation.
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