Senate's Republican leader Frist pulls defense bill after tyring to block amendments setting standards for military-prisoner interrogations

KR Washington Bureau | 07/26/2005 | Frist pulls defense bill to avoid votes on treatment of detainees: "Tue, Jul. 26, 2005 | Frist pulls defense bill to avoid votes on treatment of detainees | By James Kuhnhenn | Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON -The Senate's Republican leader on Tuesday derailed a bipartisan effort to set rules for the treatment of enemy prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other military detention camps by abruptly stopping debate on a $491 billion defense bill.

The unusual move came after senators, including several leading Republicans, beat back an effort by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to block amendments setting standards for military-prisoner interrogations and delaying base closings scheduled for approval later this year. The White House had threatened to veto the defense-spending legislation if it contained either of those provisions.

Rather than risk debate and votes on those amendments, Frist, R-Tenn., simply pulled the bill from consideration. The bill would have set defense spending levels for fiscal year 2006, which begins Oct. 1, and it includes authority to spend $50 billion on military operations in Iraq.

'It just doesn't make sense to leave defense authorization,' said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a leading sponsor of the interrogation-standard amendment. 'We need to make sure that every member of the Department of Defense understands the procedures that are being used in interrogation and we don't have a repetition of Abu Ghraib,' he said, referring to the prison in Iraq that became synonymous with detainee abuse."
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But on Monday, McCain, Graham and Warner submitted an amendment that would have required that the U.S. Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation cover prisoners in military custody.

The three, together with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, also introduced an amendment that would prohibit cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners and would require the United States to abide by the Geneva Convention and other international agreements on the treatment of prisoners.

The two amendments likely would have received substantial Democratic support and had a strong chance of passing in the Republican-controlled Senate.