Wall Street Journal (10.6.05).

Senate in 90-9 Vote Passes Bill Seeking Clearer Detainee Rules.

By DAVID ROGERS

WASHINGTON -- Defying the White House, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to require the Pentagon to set clearer standards for interrogating prisoners and take steps to prohibit "cruel, inhumane or degrading" treatment of military detainees.

The 90-9 roll call endorses efforts by Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) to establish the Army Field Manual as the uniform standard for the interrogation of any person "in the custody or under the effective control" of the Defense Department.

The margin is far more than the two-thirds majority needed to overcome a threatened veto. With President Bush due to deliver a major address today on his Iraq policy and the terrorism war, the vote highlights increasing divisions among Republicans over the administration's handling of the prisoner issue.

The White House has repeatedly raised veto threats against the McCain amendment, with Vice President Cheney and others warning that Congress would intrude on executive authority to conduct the war against terrorism.

Nevertheless, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a retired Army general and onetime chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, endorsed the action shortly before the vote. Amid continued reports of abuses by American forces, the issue has touched a deep chord in Congress, where Sen. McCain has steadily gained support until the Republican leadership, after months of resistance, gave way yesterday.

Young conservatives such as Sen. John Sununu (R., N.H.), joined his ranks, and last evening even Majority Leader Bill Frist voted for the provision, while allowing it may need some "fine tuning."

Sen. McCain's strength has been his own personal credentials as a former POW in the Vietnam War and the help of former top-ranking military officers like Mr. Powell, who argue that greater clarity is needed to guide American troops in the field.

"I can understand why some administration lawyers might want ambiguity, so that every hypothetical option is theoretically open, even those the president has said he does not want to exercise," Sen. McCain said. "But war does not occur in theory, and our troops are not served by ambiguity. They are crying out for clarity."

As approved, the amendment will become part of a $440.2 billion Pentagon budget bill. The administration will surely press for changes in final Senate negotiations with the House, which has no such language in its version of the spending package.

Sen. Ted Stevens, the bill's manager and an ally of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, will be valuable in this often-backroom process. "These are vicious people, suicidal people," he said of the terrorists facing the U.S. "There is a place in our operations against individuals involved in the war on terrorism where we deal with them as they deal with us."

But Rep. John Murtha (D., Pa.), a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, will support Sen. McCain in the talks. Sen. Daniel Inouye (D., Hawaii), who manages the bill with Sen. Stevens, predicted that much of the language would survive.

Final agreement on the appropriations bill has taken on new urgency, with Sen. Stevens warning that the Army will run low on funds for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan by the middle of next month. And the cash crunch comes as Republicans are still struggling to produce a plan to meet its savings obligations under the spring budget resolution and also offset the costs of Hurricane Katrina.

A planned $35 billion deficit-reduction package could be increased substantially, and Senate Republicans have begun to consider whether an additional $50 billion in savings and potential revenue raisers can be cobbled together.

For example, the Senate Finance Committee could be asked to produce $16 billion in Medicaid and Medicare savings -- $6 billion more than first anticipated last spring. Other areas of the budget will surely be targeted, and some panels have begun to jockey to defend their jurisdictions.

The Senate Agriculture Committee is slated to proceed today with $3 billion in five-year savings. Included is a 2.5% cut in commodity-support payments estimated to save $1.14 billion over five years. But critics argued that the same plan takes almost as much, $1.05 billion, from smaller conservation accounts and tightens eligibility standards for food-stamp recipients to save an additional $574 million.