WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush on Saturday vetoed legislation on intelligence funding because it included a provision aimed at cutting back harsh interrogation methods like waterboarding.
The bill calls for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to question suspected terrorists under the rules of the US Army Field Manual, which forbids the controlled-drowning tactic and other methods widely seen as torture.
"The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror -- the CIA program to detain and question key terrorist leaders and operatives," Bush said in his weekly radio address.
"So today, I vetoed it," said the US president.
The legislation was forwarded to Bush after being passed by US Congress at a margin shy of the two-thirds majority needed to overcome Bush's veto.
"Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that Al-Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland," Bush said.
"And it has helped us understand Al-Qaeda's structure and financing and communications and logistics," he said.
The White House later sent a statement quoting Bush saying: "I am returning herewith without my approval HR 2082, the "Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008.'"
In February CIA director Michael Hayden for the first time confirmed that the agency had used "waterboarding," or simulated drowning, in interrogations of three top Al-Qaeda detainees nearly five years ago.
The bill Bush vetoed would limit the CIA and other intelligence agencies to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the military's manual. Waterboarding is not among them.
"The bill Congress sent me would not simply ban one particular interrogation method, as some have implied," Bush said.
"Instead, it would eliminate all the alternative procedures we've developed to question the world's most dangerous and violent terrorists.
"This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe," he said.
Democrats and rights groups quickly lashed out at Bush's veto.
Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joseph Biden said: "The president once again squandered an opportunity to reaffirm our nation's commitment to our international treaty obligations and to our fundamental values."
The president's veto "undermines our credibility, weakens the international coalitions we need to effectively combat terrorism, fuels terrorist recruitment, and places American soldiers, intelligence officers, and civilians in jeopardy," Biden said in a statement.
Biden said the bill would also ban extraordinary rendition of suspects by setting up new safeguards by requiring intelligence services to apply for permission much like an arrest warrant.
Senator Jay Rockefeller, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the veto "will only serve to undermine our national security programs and the intelligence officials who carry them out.
"The CIA's program damages our national security by weakening our legal and moral authority, and by providing Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups a recruiting and motivational tool."
Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union also the move.
"President Bush will go down in history as the torture president," said HRW lawyer Jennifer Daskal.
"He has now defied a majority of Congress to allow the use of interrogation techniques that any reasonable observer would call torture."
In a letter to CIA staff Saturday obtained by AFP, Hayden defended the agency's program as legal and crucial to national security.
"CIA's program, a tightly controlled and carefully administered national option that goes beyond the Army Field Manual, has been a lawful and effective response to the national security demands that terrorism imposes. It will continue to be so as we work within the boundaries established by our nation's laws," Hayden said.
"As I have said in Congressional testimony, the Army Field Manual does not exhaust the universe of lawful interrogation techniques.
"There are methods in CIA's program that have been briefed to our oversight committees, are fully consistent with the Geneva Convention and current US law, and are most certainly not torture," Hayden said.
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