SENATE APPROVES BILL BANNING WATERBOARDING TORTURE: BUSH HAS THREATENED TO VETO LIMITS ON CIA INTERROGATIONS.

Byline: Lisa Friedman

Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate on Wednesday delivered legislation to President Bush prohibiting waterboarding as an interrogation technique after GOP lawmakers backed away from challenging the provision.

The bill restricts the CIA to 19 specific interrogation techniques outlined in the U.S. Army manual. The manual specifically bans eight techniques, including waterboarding.

"I am concerned we must have a uniform standard for interrogation of detainees," California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who maneuvered the provision into the bill, said during a debate on the Senate floor.

Bush has threatened to veto any legislation that limits CIA interrogation techniques, a move that could create a powerful election issue for both parties.

Republicans voted en masse against the intelligence authorization, which passed, 51-45. Many blasted Feinstein's measure. But none made good on threats to strip the language from the bill.

American Enterprise Institute congressional scholar Norman Ornstein said that likely was because of presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain's well-known views that waterboarding is a form of torture that should be outlawed.

"To take a provision like this out now would put (Republicans) on the defensive," Ornstein noted. "I think McCain did have a significant impact. What McCain has done is to change the whole nature of this debate, and it has clearly defined waterboarding as torture. He brings a legitimacy to this debate that nobody else has."

In waterboarding, a person is immobilized on his back on a board slanted with the head downward; water is poured on the face and into the nose and mouth so the prisoner believes he is drowning.

CIA Director Michael Hayden has said waterboarding might not be legal under current law. But Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has refused to say whether the technique is legal.

Sen. Jon Kyle, R-Ariz., who opposed Feinstein's measure, said restricting the CIA to techniques outlined in the Army manual means al-Qaida will know what to expect.

"Our terrorist adversaries know well the Army field manual and they understand if they're captured as enemy POWs, they know precisely what interrogation to expect, and in fact we know that they are trained on how to resist interrogation techniques," Kyle said.

Feinstein said America has a responsibility to clearly outlaw the technique she and others call torture.

"America has been diminished around the world. Our standing is at an all-time low. This comes from Abu Ghraib, this comes from Guantanamo, this comes from renditions, this comes from black sites and it comes from waterboarding," she said.

By prohibiting the interrogation method, she said, "I deeply believe it would go a long way toward restoring our nation's credibility."

Martin Lederman, a visiting professor of law at Georgetown University, praised the measure.

"It would bring to a halt the administration's long-standing unlawful CIA interrogation program," he said.

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