From the LA Times...
House Democrats failed Tuesday to override President Bush's veto of a ban on waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques, and they castigated the administration for subjecting prisoners to torture in the fight against terrorism.
"We are on stronger ground ethically and morally . . . when we do not torture," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said in closing the debate. "Our ability to lead the world depends not only on our military might but on our moral authority." The vote to overturn the veto, which required a two-thirds majority, fell short, 225-188.
The bill Bush vetoed authorized money for intelligence agencies and included a provision to limit the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies to tactics allowed by the Army manual used by military interrogators. The manual outlaws eight techniques, including waterboarding, a method that simulates drowning and is widely considered torture.
"Torture is no proper tool in the arsenal of democracy," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) "If we abandon our American values, we lose who we are as Americans. . . . And if the administration and all of its apologists . . . continue to force America to abandon our values, we will lose the war.""Torture, he said, "is not only un-American, it is ineffective."
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