Published on Thursday, December 6, 2007 by The Guardian/UK
by Mark Tran
Congress is set to clash with George Bush on the contentious practice of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques as it prepares legislation on intelligence funding.
Senate and House officials have included the ban on waterboarding – condemned by human rights groups as a form of torture – in their respective bills authorising 2008 spending for intelligence programmes, the Associated Press reported.
The move would set up another veto fight with Bush, who last summer issued an executive order allowing the CIA to use “enhanced interrogation techniques” that go beyond what is allowed in the 2006 army field manual.
The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 prohibited cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment for all detainees in US custody, including CIA prisoners. The CIA director, Michael Hayden, last year prohibited waterboarding, which simulates near-drowning, but has been publicly silent on other interrogation techniques.
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