WASHINGTON (ABP) — The U.S. Senate defied President Bush Oct. 5, voting overwhelmingly to amend a Pentagon spending bill to ban “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” of anyone in U.S. military custody.
The amendment passed on a 90-9 vote. All nine who opposed it are Republicans.
The bill comes in response to hundreds of reports of torture and abuse — documented by the Red Cross and the military itself — at U.S. facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the Army base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Such cases gained prominence after photographs and reports of sexual abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad caused a scandal.
The White House has opposed the effort to ban some techniques it does not consider torture, such as stripping prisoners naked, threatening them with dogs, humiliating them or forcing them to stand or crouch in uncomfortable positions for long periods of time. Such techniques are necessary for the military to coax information about terrorism from prisoners, the administration says.
The House has already passed a version of the military funding bill that does not include the anti-abuse provision. A House-Senate conference committee will determine if it remains in the final bill.
If the provision does make it into the bill that arrives at President Bush's desk, a White House spokesperson has suggested Bush may use the first veto of his presidency.