RETHINK DETAINEE BILL

The initial reason for the rebellion of Republican Sens. John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham over the White House’s version of detainee treatment was that legislative language did not hold the Bush administration to standards set forth in the Geneva Conventions and denied basic elements of a fair trial. The compromise, to be voted on this week, partly improves the court proceedings but leaves torture standards largely up to the administration.

Republicans may be relieved they will go into the November elections united on a difficult issue, but by leaving so much up to the White House, they loosen standard interpretations of what constitutes abusive treatment, giving the United States and all other signatories to the conventions license to reinvent those limits. This may, as many have pointed out, lead to harm for American military personnel; more broadly, it allows for the incremental degradation of humane treatment for all war detainees, with the retaliation for worsened treatment being yet more violence.

Even in trial proceedings, where the compromise will now allow prisoners to see the evidence against them, confessions coerced from suspects will be allowable as long as the coercion took place before the Detainee Treatment Act, passed last year, went into effect. Meanwhile, government officials who approved torture would be given immunity for past acts.

Sen. McCain argues plausibly that the compromise would stop some of the more egregious suspected practices by CIA interrogators such as water-boarding, where detainees are made to believe they are drowning. But the administration announced the compromise would allow its secret detention facilities to continue to extract information from people thought to know something about terrorist activities.

The wide latitude of the White House to act in secret is a primary reason the legislation arose. Combine this with the president’s determination to add signing statements to legislation to provide himself even more room to maneuver and the three senators should carefully consider what they actually got in the deal.

Both Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins have announced their support for the compromise, and it is true that it is an improvement over the House version. But it is not sufficient as it stands. As the Senate looks more deeply into the effects of this legislation, it should ensure the Geneva Conventions are followed and the nation sends the unambiguous message that it will not excuse torture, no matter what its source.