Bush supports "torture provisions" Reps added to bill

[RainDog]

The Bush administration is supporting a provision in the House leadership's intelligence reform bill that would allow U.S. authorities to deport certain foreigners to countries where they are likely to be tortured or abused, an action prohibited by the international laws against torture the United States signed 20 years ago.

The provision, part of the massive bill introduced Friday by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), would apply to non-U.S. citizens who are suspected of having links to terrorist organizations but have not been tried on or convicted of any charges. Democrats tried to strike the provision in a daylong House Judiciary Committee meeting, but it survived on a party-line vote.

The provision, human rights advocates said, contradicts pledges President Bush made after the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal erupted this spring that the United States would stand behind the U.N. Convention Against Torture. Hastert spokesman John Feehery said the Justice Department "really wants and supports" the provision.

...The provision is one of several items in the bill that Democrats say are unrelated to intelligence reform but Republicans say are important tools for fighting terrorists. The Senate is debating its own intelligence reform bill that does not include the provision, and the House bill is being marked up in several committees.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1803&e=2&u=/washpost/20040930/pl_washpost/a60779_2004sep29