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Senate Votes To Prohibit CIA From Waterboarding

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By PAMELA HESS, The Associated Press

Published: February 14, 2008

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Wednesday 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.

The prohibition was contained in a bill authorizing intelligence activities for the current year. The bill 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 bill passed on a 51-45 vote.

The House passed the measure in December, so the Senate vote set up a confrontation with the White House.

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," he 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.

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