Bush defends terror program from GOP revolt

President Bush pauses during a Rose Garden news conference, Friday, Sept. 15, 2006,where he confronted a Republican rebellion in the Senate over tough anti-terror legislation led by Sen. John Warner (R-Va), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

Well, this is the BIG story of today. I'm going to start off with The Washington Post here:

Warning that "time's running out" for Congress to act, President Bush urged lawmakers today to pass legislation that would create special military tribunals to try terrorist suspects and allow the CIA to continue a program in which captured al-Qaeda leaders have been held and interrogated in clandestine prisons abroad.

In a news conference in the White House Rose Garden, Bush also emphatically rejected a statement by his former secretary of state, retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, that "the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism." Bush said it was "unacceptable" to compare the actions of America with those of Islamic extremists who commit mass murder to achieve their goals.

Bush said legislation creating military tribunals must clarify in U.S. law what he called the "very vague" prohibitions in Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, so that U.S. interrogators will have full legal backing in their work to extract information from terrorist suspects.

He insisted that the bill he proposed must prevail over an alternative promoted by three key Republican senators if the CIA program is to continue. U.S. intelligence professionals "will not step up unless there's clarity in the law," he said.

In a move that openly defied the White House and raised the prospect of a split in GOP ranks over how to conduct the war on terrorism, four Republican senators joined 11 Democrats yesterday in approving the alternative military tribunals bill in the Senate Armed Services Committee. The bill was put forward by Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), the committee chairman; Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and was tortured by his captors; and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a reserve judge in the U.S. Air Force. They and other lawmakers have argued that the United States must not attempt to "redefine" prohibitions in the Geneva Conventions against inhumane treatment of detainees, a position that has received backing from Powell and a number of other retired senior military officers.

The alternative bill also grants defendants greater rights than the White House version, including the right of the defense to have access to classified evidence being used against the suspect.

What we've got here is an open revolt by GOP congressmen in the Senate Armed Services Committee by supporting an alternative military tribunals bill that is completely opposite of what the Bush White House wants. I can't even recall a time when Congress has revolted against the Bush administration on legislation regarding either Iraq, or Bush's GWOT program. This revolt challenges Bush's power as "the War President." President Bush wants to be the one who decides what constitutes torture of prisoners--not the Geneva Conventions. President Bush wants to be the one who decides the legal standards of the military tribunals--what rights the defense has to access classified information being used as "evidence" against their suspects. What is so ironic is that President Bush is willing to shut down the terror program, rather than having to abide by an alternative program submitted by Congress. Here are some interesting details in The New York Times story:

Mr. Bush did not threaten to veto a bill if it embodies the provisions that the Senate Armed Services Committee endorsed on Thursday, provisions involving the trial and questioning of suspects that the White House has termed unacceptable.

“That’s like saying, can you work with a Democratic Congress, when I don’t think a Democratic Congress will be elected,” Mr. Bush said, twice declining to answer directly when asked if he would exercise his veto power.

But while he said he would be happy to work with the legislators, Mr. Bush made it clear that he is not abandoning the main pillars of his anti-terrorism agenda. He insisted that Congress pass legislation providing for the trial of terrorist suspects by military commissions, that these trials not allow defendants access to secret intelligence and that Congress “clarify” the United States’ obligations regarding treatment of prisoners under the Geneva Conventions.

The president took care to say that he wishes to have those obligations “clarified” rather than “reinterpreted.” In particular, he said, the Conventions’ ban on “outrages on human dignity” are so vague that they demand clarification.

Members of the Central Intelligence Agency who have been questioning terrorist suspects — and extracting vital information in the process — cannot be expected to continue their efforts without clarification, Mr. Bush argued during a question-answer session that lasted nearly an hour.

Is the president so willing to make America even less safe than it is now, or even if it would be with Congress' version of the anti-terror bill, by shutting down the terror program if he can't get his own way here? Or is the president making an angry, blustering bluff against Congress? It is certainly interesting to note that Bush refused to say he would veto Congress' version of the anti-terror bill with the Senate Armed Services Committee's provisions. In addition, Bush heightened his threat by warning that "time is running out" for Congress to pass his anti-terror bill. President Bush knows that this is the last time he could get any legislation passed through a possibly Republican-controlled Congress. Once Congress adjourns, it is election season. And the next time Congress convenes, it could be under a Democratic leadership. So the Bush White House is trying to get this anti-terror legislation, and possibly even the domestic spying legislation, passed and signed into law before a possible Democratically-controlled Congress starts its session.

More to come.