From the Sydney Morning Herald :
George Bush has vetoed legislation meant to ban the CIA from using so-called waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics because it "would take away one of the most valuable tools on the war on terror".
"This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe," Mr Bush said.
Congress approved an intelligence authorisation bill that contains the waterboarding provision on slim majorities, far short of the two-thirds needed to override a presidential veto.
Mr Bush's long-expected veto reignites the Washington debate over the proper limits of the US interrogation policies and whether the CIA has engaged in torture by subjecting prisoners to severe tactics, including waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning.
Mr Bush argued on Saturday that the agency needed to use tougher methods than the US military to wrest information from terrorism suspects.
"Limiting the CIA's interrogation methods to those in the Army Field Manual would be dangerous because the manual is publicly available and easily accessible on the internet … If we were to shut down this program and restrict the CIA to methods in the field manual, we could lose vital information from senior al-Qaeda terrorists, and that could cost American lives," Mr Bush said.
The legislation would have limited the CIA to using 19 less-aggressive interrogation tactics outlined in the manual.
Besides ruling out waterboarding, that restriction would in effect ban temperature extremes, extended forced standing and other harsh methods that the CIA used on al-Qaeda prisoners after the September 11 attacks.
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