House fails to overturn veto of bill to limit CIA

House fails to overturn veto of bill to limit CIA

The bill would have limited the CIA interrogation methods.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats on Tuesday failed to overturn President Bush’s veto of a bill that would have prohibited the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques on terrorist suspects.

The vetoed legislation would have limited the CIA to using only the 19 interrogation methods approved in the Army field manual. That guidebook bans the use of waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning. CIA Director Michael Hayden has confirmed that the spy agency used the technique on three terrorist suspects in 2002 and 2003.

The 225-188 House roll call was 51 votes short of the two-thirds majority required to overturn a veto. Bush has vetoed seven bills during his tenure, and only once has Congress mustered the votes to override his veto.

The interrogation limits are part of a bill authorizing intelligence spending for 2008. Bush vetoed it Saturday. It is the first intelligence authorization bill produced by Congress in three years.

White House press secretary Dana Perino hailed the House vote, saying a successful override “would have diminished the intelligence community’s ability to protect our nation.”

“By requiring the intelligence community to use only the interrogation methods authorized in the publicly available Army field manual, the bill would have eliminated the legal alternative procedures in place in the CIA program to question the world’s most dangerous and violent terrorists,” Perino said. “The CIA program has produced critical intelligence and helped us prevent a number of attacks.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, attempted to frame the vote as a human-rights referendum. “This is about torture,” he said, a refrain repeated by other Democrats who spoke in support of the override.

Republicans portrayed their support for Bush’s veto as a stand against a bill they say is riddled with pork-barrel projects such as a National Drug Intelligence Center and a study of the national security implications of global warming.