Bush Accepts McCain's Ban on torture

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1409844

Bush Accepts McCain's Ban on Mistreatment

President Bush Reverses Course and Accepts Sen. McCain's Language Banning Mistreatment

By LIZ SIDOTI
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - President Bush reversed course on Thursday and accepted Sen. John McCain's call for a law banning cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of foreign suspects in the war on terror.

Bush said the agreement 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."

"It's a done deal," said McCain, talking to reporters in a driving rain outside the White House.

Under the deal, CIA interrogators would be given the same legal rights as currently guaranteed members of the military who are accused of breaking interrogation guidelines. Those rules say the accused can defend themselves by arguing it was reasonable for them to believe they were obeying a legal order.

"We've sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists," McCain said earlier as he sat next to Bush in the Oval Office.

The White House at one point threatened a veto if the ban was included in legislation sent to the president's desk, and Vice President Dick Cheney made an unusual personal appeal to all Republican senators to give an exemption to the CIA.

But congressional sentiment was overwhelmingly in favor of the ban, and McCain, a former Navy pilot who was held and tortured for five and a half years in Vietnam, adopted the issue.

The Republican maverick and the administration have been negotiating for weeks in search of a compromise, but it became increasingly clear that he, not the administration, had the votes in Congress.

Bush called McCain "a good man who's honored the values of America."

"We have worked very closely with the senator and others to achieve that objective as well as to provide protections for those who are the front line of fighting the terrorists," Bush said.


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