Fate of McCain Anti-Torture Amendment Now Rests With House-Senate Conference

By overwhelming margins, the U.S. Senate has attached the McCain anti-torture amendment to two pending defense bills.  The fate of the McCain language now rests with congressional negotiators who must resolve differences in the House and Senate versions of the two bills in the coming weeks. 

Neither House bill contains the McCain language, and the White House continues to lobby lawmakers to drop the anti-torture language from the bills. 

Negotiators will begin meeting within a week on the first of these two bills — a Defense Authorization Bill, which sets defense policy and priorities.  Negotiators may finalize the bill shortly after Congress returns in early December.  But the White House has threatened to veto the Defense Authorization Bill if it contains the anti-torture measure.

The second defense bill, a $453 billion Defense Appropriations Bill, is considered a “must-pass” piece of legislation. Congress must pass the defense bill, which funds the war in Iraq, before the end of the session.  Despite White House veto threats, most consider the bill veto-proof.

White House Wants Torture Exemption for CIA

In the face of growing bipartisan support for the McCain amendment, the White House has launched an effort to convince Congress to carve out an exception to permit the CIA to engage in abusive treatment of detainees.  Despite this, the Senate passed the McCain amendment a second time, attaching it to the Defense Authorization Bill. This is the same amendment that Senator McCain attached to the Defense Appropriations Bill on October 5, 2005 by a Senate vote of 90 to 9 (McCain Statement).

Banning Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment

The McCain amendment will make the Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogations binding interrogation policy for all those in military custody, and will reinforce the ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees, which the Administration now asserts does not apply to U.S. actions abroad.

"The Senate should be commended for responding to the call from American men and women in uniform for clarity and integrity in interrogation policy," said Elisa Massimino, Washington Director of Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights). “Senator McCain’s amendment offers Congress the opportunity to steer U.S. policy back on course, by making clear that torture and other cruel treatment will not be tolerated. The House should seize this opportunity and accept the Senate language.”

"This is a situation where what is good for our troops is also in line with our values as Americans," said Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, U.S. Navy (Ret.), who served as the Navy’s Judge Advocate General from 1997 to 2000. Admiral Hutson was also one of 28 retired military leaders who wrote a letter to Sen. McCain in support of the amendment (see letter at: www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/etn/pdf/mccain-100305.pdf). "Getting our interrogation policies back on track will preserve our standing to fight for humane treatment of American soldiers who are captured in future combat operations, and it will help put our security efforts back on the moral high ground." After the graphic photos showing torture and abuse of U.S.-held prisoners at Abu Ghraib emerged in April 2004, the U.S. vowed to investigate and take steps to ensure that such horrendous acts never occurred again.

In a statement released by Senator McCain, he states:

"We are Americans, and we hold ourselves to humane standards of treatment of people no matter how evil or terrible they may be. To do otherwise undermines our security, but it also undermines our greatness as a nation. We are not simply any other country. We stand for something more in the world — a moral mission, one of freedom and democracy and human rights at home and abroad. We are better than these terrorists, and we will we win. The enemy we fight has no respect for human life or human rights. They don’t deserve our sympathy. But this isn’t about who they are. This is about who we are. These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies."

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October 3, 2005 - (PDF -10KB)