Secrecy Fight Delays Detainee Rules

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A debate over whether to keep certain interrogation techniques secret is holding up the release of a long-awaited military manual on the treatment of detainees. Coming more than two years after photographs surfaced showing U.S. troops beating, intimidating and sexually abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, the new Army field manual was initially supposed to include a classified section.

In recent days, however, several members of Congress privately cautioned the Pentagon that keeping parts of the manual secret could raise suspicions that the United States was violating international and U.S. laws and rules governing detainee treatment. Those conversations led defense officials to privately debate which parts — if any — to keep secret, according to several Capitol Hill and senior defense officials. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were private and the manual has not yet been made public.

The classified section was planned to provide detailed guidelines on what can and can't be done to detainees — for example, how long they can be forced to sit or stand in certain positions or exactly how hot or cold their holding areas can be kept. The Pentagon and the Army have been reviewing a draft of the manual for more than a year and were about to release a final version last week when debate over it intensified. The Bush administration is treading carefully on the issue, mindful that detainee treatment has the potential to become a high-profile controversy once again, this time in an election year.

In a private meeting at the Pentagon last week, Sens. John Warner of Virginia and Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, broached the issue of the manual's classified section with Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., discussed the issue as well at a separate meeting with England. "I think they're making progress. I think the debate's a healthy thing. It should be examined," Warner said in a brief interview Tuesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060502/ap_on_go_ot/detainees_interrogations