Senate gives Defence Bill green light

 

US senators ignored a presidential veto by approving a massive $662 billion (£421bn) Defence Bill yesterday.

The Bill seeks to set in stone widely disputed and internationally discredited tactics by the US legal and military Establishment, some of which the White House has been gradually retreating from.

It would require the military to hold suspected terrorists supposedly linked to al-Qaida or its affiliates, even those captured on US soil, and detain some indefinitely.

The vote was 93-7 for the Bill authorising money for military personnel, weapons systems, national security programmes in the Energy Department and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the fiscal year that began on October 1.

The Senate’s version of the Defence Bill must still be reconciled with the house-passed measure in the final weeks of the congressional session.

The subject of an escalating fight between the White House and Senate Republicans, the Bill would increase the role of the military in handling terror suspects.

The White House opposes the provisions, saying that it cannot accept any legislation that “challenges or constrains the president’s authorities to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists and protect the nation.” It insists that the veto threat still stands.

The Bill would require military custody of a suspect deemed to be a member of al-Qaida or its affiliates and involved in plotting or committing attacks on the United States.

US citizens would be exempt. The Bill does allow the executive branch to waive the authority based on national security and hold a suspect in civilian custody.

The legislation would also deny suspected terrorists, even US citizens seized within the nation’s borders, the right to trial and subject them to indefinite detention.

The series of detention provisions challenges citizens’ rights under the constitution, tests the boundaries of executive and legislative branch authority and sets up a showdown with the Democratic commander in chief.

Civil rights groups fiercely oppose the Bill.

“Since the Bill puts military detention authority on steroids and makes it permanent, US citizens and others are at even greater risk of being locked away by the military without charge or trial if this Bill becomes law,” said Christopher Anders of the American Civil Liberties Union.