Senate approves $445 billion defense spending

By Vicki Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate cleared a $445
billion bill to fund the Pentagon on Friday which includes
another $50 billion for the Iraq war, after rebuking the Bush
administration for abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and
elsewhere.

On a unanimous vote, senators sent the defense spending
bill to a conference with the House of Representatives where it
faces a battle over a Senate amendment to restrict the
Pentagon’s interrogations and treatment of military prisoners
and detainees.

Earlier in the week, the Senate overwhelmingly backed an
amendment by Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who was
tortured while a prisoner of war in Vietnam, to establish the
Army field manual as the standard for interrogations and bar
cruel and degrading treatment of anyone in U.S. military
custody.

Senators also unanimously passed an amendment to clarify
the legal status of enemy combatants at the Guantanamo Bay
military prison and increase congressional oversight of their
detention and release.

Final passage of the bill was delayed a day by an unrelated
dispute over a demand by Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana
Democrat, to free up relief money more quickly for victims of
the Gulf Coast hurricanes.

The White House, which threatened to veto the must-pass
spending bill over the detainee measures, said it will work in
the House-Senate conference for a final bill with language more
to its liking. It argues the measures would tie its hands in
fighting terrorists.

“We will continue to work with congressional leaders as
they move forward. This is part of the legislative process, and
there is more to go,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan
said on Thursday, noting the House version did not include the
detainee measures.

But with the Pentagon needing more money by mid-November
for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the administration may be
quicker to accept restrictions on its detainee policies to
avoid holding up the spending bill, several senators said.

The Senate defense bill’s $50 billion in emergency funds
for the wars brings their costs to more than $350 billion, with
most of that spent in Iraq. The administration is expected to
seek more war money in February or March next year.

The House bill has $45 billion for the wars, but House
members are expected to agree to the higher number.

The Congressional Research Service said the Pentagon was
spending a monthly average of $6 billion in Iraq and $1 billion
in Afghanistan, with Iraq’s average cost up 19 percent from a
year ago.

BETTER TREATMENT FOR DETAINEES

Sen. John Warner, a Virginia Republican and chairman of the
Armed Services Committee, is a key backer of the detainee
amendments. He said the lopsided Senate vote gives lawmakers a
strong hand to protect the regulations in negotiations with the
House.

“That was an extraordinary vote in the face of the
administration’s position to the contrary,” Warner told
reporters on Thursday.

A number of lawmakers have blamed abuses at Abu Ghraib
prison in Iraq and other U.S. military prisons on the
administration’s vague policies coupled with intense pressure
on U.S. personnel to extract information from detainees.

They said those abuses, which resulted in a worldwide
scandal with published photographs of physical and sexual
mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, have damaged the
United States’ international standing and risk retribution on
U.S. soldiers who may be captured in the future.

“We’re trying to create certainty from chaos,” said South
Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. “The amendments give
guidance to our troops to ensure they don’t get into legal
trouble while detaining and interrogating terrorists.”