(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-02-14 13:12

WASHINGTON -- Congress on Wednesday moved to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects, despite President Bush's threat to veto any measure that limits the agency's interrogation techniques.

CIA Director Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008. The Senate has joined the House in voting to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods. [Agencies]

The prohibition was contained in a bill authorizing intelligence activities for the current year, which the Senate approved on a 51-45 vote. It would restrict the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method that makes an interrogation subject feel he is drowning.

The House had approved the measure in December. Wednesday's Senate vote set up a confrontation with the White House, where Bush has promised to veto any bill that restricts CIA questioning.

Arguing for such restrictions, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said the use of harsh tactics would boomerang on the United States.

"Retaliation is the way of the world. What we do to others, they will do to us -- but worse," Rockefeller said. "This debate is about more than legality. It is also about morality, the way we see ourselves ... and what we represent to the world."

The legislation bars the CIA from using waterboarding, sensory deprivation or other harsh coercive methods to break a prisoner who refuses to answer questions. Those practices were banned by the military in 2006.

Related readings:  US used waterboarding but no more - ex-spy chief  US House passes bill to ban 'waterboarding' on terrorist suspects  New details in CIA waterboarding

CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said last week that current law and court decisions, including the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, cast doubt on whether waterboarding would be legal now. Hayden prohibited its use in CIA interrogations in 2006; it has not been used since 2003, he said.

Steven G. Bradbury, acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, goes further, saying waterboarding is not now legal -- the first time the department has publicly stated such an opinion. Two secret legal memos from Bradbury in 2005 authorized the CIA to use head slaps, freezing temperatures and waterboarding when questioning terror detainees.

"The set of interrogation methods authorized for current use is narrower than before, and it does not today include waterboarding," Bradbury said in remarks prepared for his appearance Thursday before the House Judiciary Constitution subcommittee. "There has been no determination by the Justice Department that the use of waterboarding, under any circumstances, would be lawful under current law."

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