Rebuff for Bush on Terror Trials in a Senate Test
2006-09-15
Source: New York Times
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rss feedThe Senate Armed Services Committee defied President Bush on Thursday, with four Republicans joining Democrats in approving a plan for the trial and interrogation of terrorism suspects that the White House has rejected as unacceptable.
The Republican rebellion was led by Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the committee chairman, with backing from Senators John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine.
The White House had said their legislation would leave the United States no option but to shut down a C.I.A. program to interrogate high-level terrorism suspects.
The vote came on a frantic day of Republican infighting and despite an all-out effort by the White House to win support for its own approach, which provides far fewer protections for detainees.
Mr. Bush traveled to Capitol Hill with Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday morning. The administration also released a brief letter in which the top lawyers for the military branches said they found no legal objection to the White House proposal to redefine a key provision of the Geneva Conventions.
But Colin L. Powell, Mr. Bush's former secretary of state, sided with the senators, saying in a letter that the president's plan to redefine the Geneva Conventions would encourage the world to "doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism," and "put our own troops at risk."
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