Critics assail Bush veto of waterboarding ban

updated 8:56 p.m. ET March 8, 2008

WASHINGTON - Democrats and human rights advocates criticized President George W. Bush's veto Saturday of a bill that would have banned the CIA from using simulated drowning and other coercive interrogation methods to gain information from suspected terrorists.

Bush said such tactics have helped foil terrorist plots. His critics likened some methods to torture and said they sullied America's reputation around the world.

"This president had the chance to end the torture debate for good, yet he chose instead to leave the door open to use torture in the future," said Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

She said Bush ignored the advice of 43 retired generals and admirals and 18 national security experts, including former secretaries of state and national security advisers, who supported the bill.

"Torture is a black mark against the United States," she said.

The bill would have limited the CIA to 19 interrogation techniques that are used by the military and spelled out in the Army Field Manual. Bush said he vetoed the measure because it is important for the CIA to have a separate and classified interrogation program for suspected terrorists who possess critical information about possible plots against the United States.

Bush, who used his weekly radio address to announce the veto, said the program had helped stop plots against a Marine camp in Djibouti and the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, and plans to fly passenger planes into a Los Angeles tower or London's Heathrow Airport and city buildings.

"Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that al-Qaida and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland," the president said.

Pelosi speaks out
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the nation's ability to lead the world depends on its morality, not military might. "We will begin to reassert that moral authority by attempting to override the president's veto next week," said Pelosi, a Democrat.

Based on the margin of passage in each chamber, it may prove difficult for the Democratic-controlled Congress to turn back Bush's veto. It takes a two-thirds majority, and the vote was 222-199 in the House and 51-45 in the Senate.

Bush said he did not veto the bill specifically over waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning. The Army banned the use of waterboarding or sensory deprivation on uncooperative prisoners in 2006. The CIA, which also prohibited the practice in 2006, has acknowledged using waterboarding on three suspected terrorists in 2003.

"My disagreement ... is not over any particular interrogation technique; for instance, it is not over waterboarding, which is not part of the current CIA program," Bush said in his veto message to the House.

The attorney general has deemed that program legal under domestic and international law, he said.

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