Bush granted leeway on terror suspects

WASHINGTON — A Republican deal on terrorism trials and interrogations would give President Bush wide latitude to interpret standards for prisoner treatment, even though it doesn’t include a provision he wanted on the Geneva Conventions.

The resulting legislation, if passed next week by Congress as Republicans hope, would revive the CIA’s terrorist interrogation program because it would reduce the risk that agency workers could be found guilty of war crimes.

The deal also could open the door to aggressive techniques that test the bounds of international standards of prisoner treatment.

"The key to this deal will be whether Congress exercises real oversight over the CIA interrogation program,” said California Rep. Jane Harman, who as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee has been briefed on how the CIA handles terrorism suspects.

The GOP bill outlines specific war crimes such as torture and rape, but it also says the president can "interpret the meaning and application” of the Geneva Convention standards to less severe interrogation procedures. Such a provision is intended to allow him to authorize methods that might otherwise be seen as illegal by international courts.

Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said the president plans to use this authority to "clarify” Geneva Convention obligations by executive order, which must be published in the Federal Register Harman said Friday she wants the administration to give Congress a list of techniques approved by the president and legal justification for the methods.

"If Congress does not demand this information, we will be giving the president another blank check to violate the law,” she said.

President Bush has been pushing legislation that would endorse the CIA program since June, when the Supreme Court ruled al-Qaida members must be protected under the Geneva Conventions, a 1949 treaty that sets international standards for the treatment of war prisoners .

Before the court ruling, the legality of the interrogation program relied on Bush’s assumption that the combatants were not protected under the treaty and, therefore, could be subjected to aggressive techniques.

U.S. officials say the Supreme Court ruling — which also determined the trials Bush established to prosecute the terrorists were illegal — threw cold water on the program because of fears interrogators could be prosecuted for war crimes.

The White House wanted to have Congress endorse the program with a law narrowly defining Geneva Convention standards, giving the president the latitude he wanted to continue the CIA program. But when three GOP senators objected and were joined by growing numbers of allies — claiming such a move would be seen as an attempt to back out of the treaty — the White House relented.

In a deal struck Thursday, the White House and Senate Republicans agreed to drop from the bill an abbreviated definition of Geneva Convention standards.

But enough legal parsing was added to the bill to achieve the president’s desired effect anyway.

The Republican bill provides legal protection for the CIA program by precisely defining and enumerating atrocities widely accepted as war crimes — including torture, rape, biological experiments, and cruel and inhuman treatment.

For acts that do not rise to the level of a war crime but may test the bounds of the Geneva Conventions, the GOP bill allows the president to make the call.

The net effect is to raise the legal bar on war crime violations, making it tougher to prosecute a U.S. official unless the act meets those definitions.

"It sounds like the administration got a pretty good deal actually” because it would reinstate the president’s prerogative, said John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer who helped write internal memos in 2002 designed to give the government more leeway in aggressive questioning of suspects.

Human rights lawyers disagree on whether this flexibility, along with the bill’s definition of cruel treatment, would endorse such techniques as "waterboarding” — a method intended to simulate the sensation of drowning. Waterboarding and similar interrogation methods allegedly used by the CIA are not specifically identified as war crimes although some say these techniques could qualify as cruel and inhumane.

But, legal experts agree, in the end it will be up to the president to determine when most interrogation methods go too far. The bill bans detainees from protesting their detention and treatment in court.

"You always run into the potential ... that we’re going to go back to secret prisons and bad things will happen,” said John Hutson, a former Navy judge advocate general. "And there’s really not a way in legislation to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Hutson, who staunchly opposed the administration’s initial legal proposal, said he believes the administration intends to "interpret the words in good faith.”

Congress is expected to vote on the bill before lawmakers leave at the end of next week for midterm elections. While the bill has been agreed to by the Senate, House conservatives have said they were concerned with the provision that requires a defendant access to evidence if used in an attempt to convict him or her. This stipulation could expose sensitive or classified information, they said.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Friday he would support the bill but was still reviewing the rules surrounding evidence.

But regarding the CIA program and "the protection of their people, this does the right thing and it does protect them,” said Hunter, R-Calif.<