Senate Approves Spending Measure Governing Detainee Treatment
15 November 2005
Bill calls for quarterly progress reports on Iraq to Congress
By Merle D. Kellerhals Jr.
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- The Senate overwhelmingly approved a 2006 defense policy spending bill November 15 that also includes amendments that prohibit inhumane and cruel treatment of detainees held in U.S. detention centers and that establish new legal rights for terrorism suspects held by the United States.
The $491.6 billion 2006 defense authorization bill was passed by a 98-0 vote. The bill authorizes spending at the Defense Department and for the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons programs designed for the U.S. armed forces in the fiscal year that began October 1.
The bill authorizes spending $50 billion for continuing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Senate passage means the bill now goes to a Senate and House of Representatives conference committee that will resolve differences between the two versions of the same bill.
The bill also includes an amendment proposed by Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner, a Republican from Virginia, requiring President Bush to report to Congress every three months on military and political progress in transferring control of Iraq and its security to its newly elected democratic government. Efforts to set a timetable for redeploying U.S. troops were defeated.
Warner said the Senate message to the Iraqi government is that "we mean business, we have done our share. Now the challenge is up to you."
He said this is not a question of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. "This reflects what has to be done."
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman (Connecticut Democrat) said he believes the Warner amendment reflects a turning point in congressional oversight of Iraq and related defense issues.
"It's not a change in policy; it's not a change in tone. It's a continuation of the oversight we've been conducting for years in the United States Senate," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tennessee) said of the amendments. It is not a shift in the view of the Republican-led Senate on the Iraq conflict or a criticism of how President Bush has managed it, he said.
The Senate included an amendment proposed by Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, that would ban cruel and inhumane treatment of enemy combatants captured in the War on Terror. In addition, it would require interrogators to follow guidelines set forth in a U.S. Army field manual, currently under revision by the Defense Department, which brings detainee interrogation into compliance with the Geneva Conventions.
Warner, who co-sponsored the McCain amendment, said, "I firmly believe that it's in the best interest of the Department of Defense, the men and women of the United States military, that this manual be their guide."
President Bush has defended current U.S. treatment of terrorist suspects saying, "We do not torture."
The Senate also adopted an amendment by South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham that would allow detainees being held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to challenge their designation as enemy combatants to a U.S. federal appeals court. It also allows an automatic appeal of any convictions by military tribunals, if detainees are sentenced to prison terms of 10 years or more or to a death sentence. It does not allow detainees unlimited access to the U.S. federal courts.
The U.S. House passed its $441.6 billion defense authorization bill May 25 by a vote of 390-39. Even though the House bill sets defense policy and contains authorization for a variety of defense needs that include spending for personnel, equipment, weapons programs and ongoing military operations worldwide, it does not contain restrictions on the treatment of detainees or the demand for quarterly progress reports on Iraq operations.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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