History > 2006 > USA > Senate (III)

Senate Passes Bill

on Building Border Fence

September 30, 2006
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE and RACHEL L. SWARNS

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 — The Senate on Friday approved the building of 700 miles of fence along the nation’s southwestern border, fulfilling a demand by conservative Republicans to take steps to slow the flow of illegal immigrants before exploring broader changes to immigration law.

The Senate vote, 80 to 19, came as lawmakers finished a batch of legislation before heading home to campaign. It sent the fence measure to President Bush, who has promised to sign it despite his earlier push for a more comprehensive approach that could lead to citizenship for some who are in the country illegally.

House Republicans, fearing a voter backlash, had opposed any approach that smacked of amnesty and chose instead to focus on border security in advance of the elections, passing the fence bill earlier this month. With time running out, the Senate acquiesced despite its bipartisan passage of a broader bill in May.

Congress also passed a separate $34.8 billion homeland security spending bill that contained an estimated $21.3 billion for border security, including $1.2 billion for the fence and associated barriers and surveillance systems.

“This is something the American people have been wanting us to do for a long time,” said Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, whose state would be the site of substantial fence construction.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff praised the money for border security. He said it would “enable the department to make substantial progress toward preventing terrorists and others from exploiting our borders and provides flexibility for smart deployment of physical infrastructure that needs to be built along the southwest border.”

Some Democrats ridiculed the fence idea and said a broader approach was the only way to halt the influx. “You don’t have to be a law enforcement or engineering expert to know that a 700-mile fence on a 2,000-mile border makes no sense,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate. Nevertheless, more than 20 Democrats moved behind the measure.

The fence bill and homeland spending were among security-related measures the Republican leadership was pushing through in the closing hours to bolster their security credentials.

On a 100-to-0 vote, the Senate earlier sent a $447.6 billion bill for the Defense Department to the president. It included $70 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a sum that will bring the total spent on those wars and other military antiterrorism operations to more than $500 billion.

Lawmakers also sped through a port security bill that would institute new safeguards at the nation’s 361 seaports, while a Pentagon policy measure stalled in a Senate dispute.

“Passage of this port security bill is a major leap ahead in our efforts to strengthen our national security,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and chairwoman of the Senate homeland security panel.

At the urging of conservative groups and the National Football League, among other interests, the port security measure carried legislation cracking down on Internet gambling by prohibiting credit card companies and other financial institutions from processing the exchange of money between bettors and Web sites. The prohibition, which exempts some horse-racing operations, has previously passed the House and Senate at different times but has never cleared Congress.

“Although we can’t monitor every online gambler or regulate offshore gambling, we can police the financial institutions that disregard our laws,” said Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, who lobbied to add the crackdown to the port bill.

Because Congress failed to finish nine other required spending bills before the Sept. 30 deadline, the Pentagon measure also contained a provision to maintain spending for other federal agencies through Nov. 17 to give lawmakers time to finish the bills in a post-election session.

In an end-of-session appeal to conservatives, Senate Republicans also brought up a measure that could lead to criminal charges against people who take under-age girls across state lines for abortions, but they were unable to get enough votes to overcome procedural obstacles, and the bill stalled.

The atmosphere in the Capitol was somewhat tense as lawmakers were set to head back to their districts for what is looming as a difficult election. And the sudden resignation of Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida, after the disclosure of sexually suggestive e-mail messages he reportedly sent to teenage pages, added to the turmoil.

The fence legislation was one of the chief elements to survive the broader comprehensive bill that President Bush and a Senate coalition had hoped would tighten border security, grant legal status to most illegal immigrants and create a vast guest worker program to supply the nation’s industries.

Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, said the vote would build credibility with conservative voters who have been skeptical of the government’s commitment to border security.

“They have been under the impression that Congress has been a lot about conversations about securing the border and not about action,” said Mr. Chambliss, who opposes the legalization of illegal immigrants and voted against the Senate immigration bill. “This is real action.”

But Republicans and Democrats alike acknowledged they were leaving the country’s immigration problems largely unresolved. The border security measures passed do not address the 11 million people living here illegally, the call for a guest worker program by businesses or the need for a verification program that would ensure that companies do not hire illegal workers.

And while Congress wants 700 miles of fencing, it was appropriating only enough money to complete about 370 miles of it, Congressional aides acknowledged, leaving it unclear as to whether the entire structure will be built. Dana Perino, deputy White House press secretary, said Friday that Mr. Bush intended to keep pressing Congress for a broader fix. She said the White House was hopeful that Congress would return to the issue after the elections.

Senate Passes Bill on Building Border Fence, NYT, 30.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/washington/30cong.html

Senate Moves Toward Action

on Border Fence

September 29, 2006
The New York Times
By RACHEL L. SWARNS

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — The Senate agreed on Thursday night to end debate and press ahead with a final vote on the construction of 700 miles of fencing along the United States border with Mexico to help stem the tide of illegal immigration.

The bill would require construction of two layers of reinforced fencing in stretches of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas that are considered among the most porous parts of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico.

It would also require officials of the Department of Homeland Security to establish “operational control” over all American land and sea borders by using Border Patrol agents, fencing, satellites, cameras and unmanned aerial vehicles. The Senate, which voted 71 to 28 to end debate, is expected to hold a final vote on the measure by Saturday.

The fence represents one of the few elements from the broad bipartisan immigration measure approved by the Senate in May to win support from House Republicans, who passed their own fencing bill this month. The Senate bill also provided for the creation of a guest worker program and the legalization of most of the nation’s illegal immigrants, measures hailed by President Bush.

House Republicans rejected that approach, refusing to consider any bill that could be called amnesty for illegal immigrants, and choosing instead to focus on toughening border security.

On Thursday, the Republican architects of the Senate bill — including Senators John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Mel Martinez of Florida and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska — supported the decision to bring the fencing measure to a final vote. The lawmakers, who still favor the legalization of illegal immigrants, have said they view the fence as one step toward achieving their broader legislative goals.

One Republican, Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, voted against shutting off debate on the fence. Eighteen Democrats voted in favor of it.

Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, described the vote as a crucial effort toward stopping the flood of illegal immigrants pouring into the United States.

“We know that fencing works,” Mr. Sessions said. “It’s time to make it a reality. Then we’ll have some credibility with the American people. Then we can talk comprehensively about how to fix an absolutely broken immigration system.”

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, derided the bill as “a good-feel, bumper-sticker vote” intended to energize conservative voters before the midterm elections. He noted that nearly half of the illegal immigrants in the country entered the country legally, without sneaking across the Mexican border, and overstayed their visas.

“This is a waste of money,” Mr. Kennedy said. “It isn’t going to work, and it’s going to be enormously costly.”

The fence is one of several border security measures the Senate hopes to pass this week before Congress recesses to campaign for the Nov. 7 elections. On Monday, House and Senate negotiators agreed to provide $1.2 billion for several hundred miles of fencing as part of a $34.8 billion spending plan for the Department of Homeland Security for the coming year.

The border security spending is one of several major policy initiatives that Congressional leaders decided to insert into the annual appropriations bill. It includes money to hire 1,500 new Border Patrol agents, increasing the force to 14,800, and to add 6,700 detention beds. The $1.2 billion for border security is designated for a traditional fence, vehicle barriers and a so-called virtual fence, which includes lighting, cameras and ground sensors.

The fence would be built near Tecate, Mexico, and Calexico, Calif.; Columbus, N.M.; and El Paso, Del Rio, Eagle Pass, Laredo and Brownsville in Texas.

Senators still sparred late into the night on Thursday, however, over two amendments to the fencing measure.

One amendment, proposed by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, would require the Department of Homeland Security to work with state and local officials in border states to determine where the fencing should be.

The second amendment, proposed by Mr. Martinez, would give the secretary of homeland security greater flexibility in determining when operational control of the borders is achieved.

    Senate Moves Toward Action on Border Fence, NYT, 29.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/washington/29immig.html?hp&ex=1159588800&en=58da45693e93f030&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Senate Passes Broad New Detainee Rules

September 29, 2006
The New York Times
By KATE ZERNIKE

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — The Senate approved a measure on Thursday on the interrogations and trials of terrorism suspects, establishing far-reaching rules to deal with what President Bush has called the most dangerous combatants in a different type of war.

The vote was 65 to 34. It was cast after more than 10 hours of often impassioned debate that touched on the Constitution, the horrors of Sept. 11 and the role of the United States in the world.

Both parties also positioned themselves for the continuing clash over national security going into the homestretch of the midterm elections. The vote showed that Democrats believe that President Bush’s power to wield national security as a political issue is seriously diminished. [News analysis, Page A20.]

The bill would set up rules for the military commissions that will allow the government to proceed with the prosecutions of high-level detainees including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, considered the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

It would make illegal several broadly defined abuses of detainees, while leaving it to the president to establish specific permissible interrogation techniques. And it would strip detainees of a habeas corpus right to challenge their detentions in court.

The bill is the same as one that the House passed, eliminating the need for a conference between the two chambers. The House is expected to approve the Senate bill Friday, sending it to the president to be signed.

The bill was a compromise between the White House and three Republican senators who had resisted what they saw as Mr. Bush’s effort to rewrite the nation’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions. Although the president had to relent on some major provisions, the vote allows him to claim victory in achieving a main legislative priority.

“As our troops risk their lives to fight terrorism, this bill will ensure they are prepared to defeat today’s enemies and address tomorrow’s threats,” the president said in a statement after the vote.

Republicans argued that the new rules would provide the necessary tools to fight a new kind of enemy.

“Our prior concept of war has been completely altered, as we learned so tragically on Sept. 11, 2001,” Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, said. “And we must address threats in a different way.”

Democrats argued that the rules were being rushed through for political gain too close to a major election and that they would fundamentally threaten the foundations of the American legal system and come back to haunt lawmakers as one of the greatest mistakes in history.

“I believe there can be no mercy for those who perpetrated the crimes of 9/11,” Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, said. “But in the process of accomplishing what I believe is essential for our security, we must hold onto our values and set an example that we can point to with pride, not shame.”

Twelve Democrats crossed party lines to vote for the bill. One Republican, Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, voted against it.

But provisions of the bill came under criticism from Republicans as well as Democrats, with several crossing lines on amendments that failed along narrow margins.

Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, arguing for an amendment to strike a provision to bar suspects from challenging their detentions in court, said it “is as legally abusive of the rights guaranteed in the Constitution as the actions at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and secret prisons were physically abusive of detainees.”

The amendment failed, 51 to 49.

Even some Republicans who voted for the bill said they expected the Supreme Court to strike down the legislation because of the provision barring court detainees’ challenges, an outcome that would send the legislation right back to Congress.

“We should have done it right, because we’re going to have to do it again,” said Senator Gordon H. Smith, Republican of Oregon, who voted to strike the provision and yet supported the bill.

The measure would broaden the definition of enemy combatants beyond the traditional definition used in wartime, to include noncitizens living legally in the United States as well as those in foreign countries and anyone determined to be an enemy combatant under criteria defined by the president or secretary of defense.

It would strip at Guantánamo detainees of the habeas right to challenge their detention in court, relying instead on procedures known as combatant status review trials. Those trials have looser rules of evidence than the courts.

It would allow of evidence seized in this country or abroad without a search warrant to be admitted in trials.

The bill would also bar the admission of evidence obtained by cruel and inhuman treatment, except any obtained before Dec. 30, 2005, when Congress enacted the Detainee Treatment Act, that a judge declares reliable and probative.

Democrats said the date was conveniently set after the worst abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.

The legislation establishes several “grave breaches” of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention that are felonies under the War Crimes Act, including torture, rape, murder and any act intended to cause “serious” physical or mental pain or suffering.

The issue was sent to Congress as a result of a Supreme Court decision in June that struck down military tribunals that the Bush administration had established shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. The court ruled that the tribunals violated the Constitution and international law.

The White House submitted a bill this month to authorize a tribunal system, setting off intraparty fighting as the three Senate Republicans, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona and John W. Warner Jr. of Virginia, insisted that they would not support a provision that in any way appeared to alter the commitments under the Geneva Conventions.

Such a redefinition, they argued, would send a signal to other nations that they, too, could rewrite their commitments to the 57-year-old conventions and, ultimately, lead to Americans seized in wartime being abused and tried in kangaroo courts.

The White House and the senators came to their agreement last week.

Democrats and human rights groups objected to changes in the legislation over the weekend, as the House and White House drafted final language, including defining enemy combatants and setting rules on search warrants.

“We should get this right, now, and we are not doing so by passing this bill,” Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who is the minority leader, said before the vote. “Future generations will view passage of this bill as a grave error.”

Human rights groups called the vote to approve the bill “dangerous” and “disappointing.” Critics feared that it left the president a large loophole by allowing him to set specific interrogation techniques.

Senators Graham, McCain and Warner rebutted that vociferously, arguing in floor statements, as well as in a colloquy submitted into the official record, that the measure would in no way give the president the authority to authorize any interrogation tactics that do not comply with the Detainee Treatment Act and the Geneva Conventions, which bar cruel and inhuman treatment, and that the bill would not alter American obligations under the Geneva Conventions.

“The conventions are preserved intact,” Mr. McCain promised his colleagues from the floor.

After the vote, Mr. Graham said: “America can be proud. Not only did she adhere to the Geneva Conventions, she went further than she had to, because we’re better than the terrorists.”

Besides the amendments that would have struck the ban on habeas corpus cases, the others that failed included one that would have established a sunset on the measure to allow Congress to reconsider it in five years and one that would have require the C.I.A. to submit to Congressional oversight.

Another failed amendment would have required the State Department to inform other nations of what interrogation techniques it considered illegal for use on American troops, a move intended to prompt the administration to say publicly what techniques it considers out of bounds.

    Senate Passes Broad New Detainee Rules, NYT, 29.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/washington/29detain.html?hp&ex=1159588800&en=6cbabb925a41f7b0&ei=5094&partner=homepage

New Hope for Democrats in Bid for Senate

September 28, 2006
The New York Times
By ROBIN TONER

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 — Six weeks before Election Day, the Democrats suddenly face a map with unexpected opportunities in their battle for control of the Senate.

In Virginia, a state that few expected to be seriously competitive, Senator George Allen looks newly vulnerable after a series of controversies over charges of racial insensitivity, strategists in both parties say. In Tennessee, another Southern state long considered safely red, Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., a Democrat, has run a strong campaign that has kept that state in contention.

Elsewhere, Democratic challengers are either ahead or close in races in five states held by the Republicans: Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, according to political strategists in both parties and the latest polls.

All of these races could shift direction in a matter of days, let alone six weeks, and Republicans are counting on their superior finances and large blocks of television advertising to hold the line. Democrats also have their own vulnerabilities, particularly in New Jersey, where Senator Robert Menendez is in a tight race with his Republican challenger, State Senator Thomas H. Kean Jr., according to recent polls.

Democrats must win six Republican seats to regain a Senate majority, meaning they would have to win nearly every close race. Even the most optimistic Democrats acknowledge that such a feat would require a big anti-Republican wave, a lot of money and a lot of luck.

Still, a shift in the Senate was always considered a long shot this year. Some analysts now say, however, that there are enough Republican seats facing serious challenges to make it at least plausible.

“There’s a big difference in talking about six seats in play and not five,” said Stuart Rothenberg, an independent analyst.

In Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, has been lagging behind Bob Casey, the state treasurer, for months. In Rhode Island, Senator Lincoln Chafee, a Republican, overcame his primary challenge, but remains locked in a tight race with Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democrat and former state attorney general.

Senator Mike Dewine, Republican of Ohio, is fighting an unhappy political mood in his state, stoked by local Republican scandals and economic unease.. Independent polls suggest Mr. Dewine remains in a tight race with his Democratic challenger, Representative Sherrod Brown.

In Montana, Senator Conrad Burns, the Republican, has been considered vulnerable for months to his Democratic challenger, Jon Tester, a farmer and state senator. And any route to a majority for the Democrats would have to include Missouri, where Senator Jim Talent, the Republican, is being challenged by Claire McCaskill, the state auditor.

Republicans’ hopes for a pickup look strongest, at the moment, in New Jersey. But another target is the open Democratic seat in Maryland, where Lt. Gov. Michael Steele is running against Representative Benjamin L. Cardin, a Democrat still trying to unify his party after a competitive primary campaign.

Republican strategists acknowledge the intensely competitive map but say they are ready for it.

“Anybody who says there’s no way the Democrats could regain control of the Senate, that’s just wishful thinking,” said Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster active in numerous House and Senate races. “But there’s a long way between could and would, and the Republican resource advantage is just now coming to bear.”

Democrats are upbeat but wary.

Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said: “We will pick up seats. And if the stars continue to align, we can take back the Senate.”

Republicans say they have the money not only to defend their seats, but also to put Democrats on the defensive in Maryland, New Jersey and elsewhere.

“We obviously knew all along many of our Republicans were going to have difficult races, and they’ve known that as well, which is why they have more resources than their counterparts and are able to push back,” said Brian Nick, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Republican Senate candidates are getting a major boost from the Republican National Committee, which is financing an advertising campaign so far focused largely on Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee. This is widely viewed as a firewall strategy: If Republicans hold onto even one of those seats, it stymies the Democrats’ hopes of regaining a majority.

Mr. Schumer said, “The 800-pound gorilla is the money the R.N.C. is pouring into those races.”

Republicans also argue that six weeks out, many voters are only beginning to pay attention. In Tennessee, for example, Ben Mitchell, campaign manager for the Republican Senate candidate, former Mayor Bob Corker of Chattanooga, said voters would reject Mr. Ford when they learned about his voting record, which Republicans assert is at odds with his centrist image.

Pete Brodnitz, a pollster for Mr. Ford, countered that Tennessee voters had a “big appetite for change.”

Perhaps the most unexpected development this year is the competition in two Southern states. Democrats have fared poorly in the South in recent years, which has accounted, in large part, for their difficulty in gaining a Senate majority.

Tennessee, where the seat is held by the retiring majority leader, Bill Frist, is drawing intense interest from national Republicans. President Bush was in Memphis on Wednesday to raise money for Mr. Corker.

The Virginia race — between Mr. Allen and Jim Webb, the Democrat — looked safe for the Republicans until Mr. Allen made a demeaning reference to a young American man of Indian descent — a Webb campaign worker — at a rally in August. Then, last week, Mr. Allen reacted angrily to a reporter’s question about whether his mother had been born Jewish, which began another distracting episode for his campaign.

This week, he has faced accusations that he used racist slurs in the 1970’s and 1980’s — allegations that Mr. Allen has flatly denied.

This week, Mr. Allen’s campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, described the race as “competitive,” but asserted that would change as it became clear that Mr. Webb “stands with John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton.”

Steve Jarding, an adviser to Mr. Webb, described the race as a dead heat, and said that while Mr. Allen retained a financial advantage, Mr. Webb’s fund-raising had soared of late.

Both parties are watching to see if Mr. Webb can take advantage of his new opening.

Analysts say the level of Senate competition should come as no surprise; Senate races are more likely to reflect national trends, they say, whereas most House districts are so carefully drawn on partisan lines that “they are safe against anything but a hurricane,” said Gary C. Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego.

    New Hope for Democrats in Bid for Senate, NYT, 28.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/us/politics/28senate.html?hp&ex=1159502400&en=cf33b74f600c3a00&ei=5094&partner=homepage

U.S. Senate Democrats decry voter photo ID bill

Fri Sep 22, 2006 10:01 PM ET
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democrats on Friday said legislation that would require voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections was little more than a poll tax and urged Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to stop the bill.

The measure, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last week largely along party lines, would require voters to present at the polls a photo identification that also proves citizenship for federal elections beginning in 2010.

Republicans said proof of citizenship is needed to crack down on voter fraud and ensure illegal immigrants do not vote in U.S. elections.

Democrats said there is no evidence of widespread abuse and that the cost and effort required to get such a document would discourage poor voters, the elderly and people with disabilities.

"Worst of all, this bill recalls a dark era in our nation when individuals were required to pay a poll tax to cast their ballot and has been termed a 21st century poll tax," Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and three other Democrats wrote in a letter to Frist, a Tennessee Republican.

Democrats said the only identification that would meet that requirement is a passport, which costs $97 to obtain. Only about 25 percent of Americans have passports.

Democrats fear Republicans will attach the photo identification measure to a domestic security spending bill the House and Senate could vote on next week.

They say such a move would be politically motivated to draw Democratic opposition to the homeland security bill that otherwise would easily pass just weeks ahead of the November 7 congressional elections.

If the identification measure were enacted it would likely face legal challenges. Recently judges in Missouri and Georgia ruled unconstitutional state laws requiring voter photo identification.

    U.S. Senate Democrats decry voter photo ID bill, R, 22.9.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-09-23T020123Z_01_N22219956_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-IMMIGRATION-ELECTIONS.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-2

Court says Graham can't serve as judge and senator

Posted 9/20/2006 11:30 PM ET
USA TODAY
By Andrea Stone

A federal court ruled Wednesday that Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., cannot serve in Congress and as a military judge.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces said Graham violated the Constitution's Incompatibility Clause by serving as an Air Force Reserve colonel on the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals. The clause prohibits members of Congress from also holding "an office of the United States," specifically in the executive branch. The framers included the clause to avoid conflicts of interest.

In its decision, the court said a member of Congress "performing independent judicial functions runs afoul of the fundamental constitutional principle of separation of powers."

Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said the decision bars Graham or any other member of Congress from the judicial bench but does not forbid lawmakers from serving in another military capacity. At least three House members are military reservists.

    Court says Graham can't serve as judge and senator, NYT, 20.9.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-09-20-graham-ruling_x.htm

Border Fence Must Skirt Objections From Arizona Tribe

September 20, 2006
The New York Times
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION, Ariz., Sept. 14 — The Senate is expected to vote Wednesday on legislation to build a double-layered 700-mile-long fence on the Mexican border, a proposal already approved by the House.

If the fence is built, however, it could have a long gap — about 75 miles — at one of the border’s most vulnerable points because of opposition from the Indian tribe here.

More illegal immigrants are caught — and die trying to cross into the United States — in and around the Tohono O’odham Indian territory, which straddles the Arizona border, than any other spot in the state.

Tribal leaders have cooperated with Border Patrol enforcement, but they promised to fight the building of a fence out of environmental and cultural concerns.

For the Tohono O’odham, which means “desert people,” the reason is fairly simple. For generations, their people and the wildlife they revere have freely crossed the border. For years, an existing four-foot-high cattle fence has had several openings — essentially cattle gates — that tribal members use to visit relatives and friends, take children to school and perform rites on the other side.

“I am O’odham first, and American or Mexican second or third,” said Ramon Valenzuela, as he walked his two children to school through one gate two miles from his O’odham village in Mexico.

But the pushed-up bottom strands of the cattle fence and the surrounding desert littered with clothing, water jugs and discarded backpacks testify to the growth in illegal immigrant traffic, which surged here after a Border Patrol enforcement squeeze in California and Texas in the mid-1990’s.

Crossers take advantage of a remote network of washes and trails — and sometimes Indian guides — to reach nearby highways bound for cities across the country.

Tribal members, who once gave water and food to the occasional passing migrant, say they have become fed up with groups of illegal immigrants breaking into homes and stealing food, water and clothing, and even using indoor and outdoor electrical outlets to charge cellphones.

With tribal police, health and other services overwhelmed by illegal immigration, the Indians welcomed National Guard members this summer to assist the Border Patrol here. The tribe, after negotiations with the Department of Homeland Security, also agreed to a plan for concrete vehicle barriers at the fence and the grading of the dirt road parallel to it for speedier Border Patrol and tribal police access. The Indians also donated a parcel this year for a small Border Patrol substation and holding pen.

Tribal members, however, fearing the symbolism of a solid wall and concern about the free range of deer, wild horses, coyotes, jackrabbits and other animals they regard as kin, said they would fight the kind of steel-plated fencing that Congress had in mind and that has slackened the crossing flow in previous hot spots like San Diego.

“Animals and our people need to cross freely,” said Verlon Jose, a member of the tribal council representing border villages. “In our tradition we are taught to be concerned about every living thing as if they were people. We don’t want that wall.”

The federal government, the trustee of all Indian lands, could build the fence here without tribal permission, but that option is not being pressed because officials said it might jeopardize the tribe’s cooperation on smuggling and other border crimes.

“We rely on them for cooperation and intelligence and phone calls about illegal activity as much as they depend on us to respond to calls,” said Chuy Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in Tucson, who described overall relations as “getting better and better.”

The Tohono number more than 30,000, including 14,000 on the Arizona tribal territory and 1,400 in Mexico. Building a fence would impose many challenges, apart from the political difficulties.

When steel fencing and other resources went up in California and Texas, migrant traffic shifted to the rugged terrain here, and critics say more fencing will simply force crossers to other areas without the fence. Or under it, as evidenced by the growth in the number of tunnels discovered near San Diego.

The shift in traffic to more remote, treacherous terrain has also led to hundreds of deaths of crossers, including scores on tribal land here.

The effort to curtail illegal immigration has proved especially difficult on the Tohono O’odham Nation, whose 2.8 million acres, about the size of Connecticut, make it the second largest in area.

Faced with poverty and unemployment, an increasing number of tribal members are turning to the smuggling of migrants and drugs, tribal officials say.

Just this year, the tribal council adopted a law barring the harboring of illegal immigrants in homes, a gesture to show it is taking a “zero tolerance” stand, said the tribal chairwoman, Vivian Juan-Saunders.

Two members of Ms. Juan-Saunders’s family have been convicted of drug smuggling in the past several years, and she said virtually every family had been touched by drug abuse, smuggling or both.

Sgt. Ed Perez of the tribal police said members had been offered $400 per person to transport illegal immigrants from the tribal territory to Tucson, a 90-minute drive, and much more to carry drugs.

The Border Patrol and tribal authorities say the increase in manpower and technology is yielding results. Deaths are down slightly, 55 this year compared with 62 last year, and arrests of illegal immigrants in the Border Patrol sectors covering the tribal land are up about 10 percent.

But the influx of agents, many of whom are unfamiliar with the territory or Tohono ways, has brought complaints that the agents have interfered with tribal ceremonies, entered property uninvited and tried to block members crossing back and forth.

Ms. Juan-Saunders said helicopters swooped low and agents descended on a recent ceremony, apparently suspicious of a large gathering near the border, and she has complained to supervisors about agents speeding and damaging plants used for medicine and food.

Some traditional and activist tribal members later this month are organizing a conference among eight Indian nations on or near the border to address concerns here and elsewhere.

“We are in a police state,” said Michael Flores, a tribal member helping to organize the conference. “It is not a tranquil place anymore.”

Mr. Rodriguez acknowledged the concerns but said agents operated in a murky world where a rush of pickups from a border village just might be tribal members attending an all-night wake, or something else.

“Agents make stops based on what they see,” he said. “Sometimes an agent sees something different from what tribal members or others see.”

Agents, he added, are receiving more cultural training, including a new cultural awareness video just shot with the help of tribal members.

“Our relations have come a long way” in the past decade, he said.

Mr. Valenzuela said several agents knew him and waved as he traveled across the border, but others have stopped him, demanding identification. Once, he said, he left at home a card that identifies him as a tribal member and an agent demanded that he go back into Mexico and cross at the official port of entry in Sasabe, 20 miles away.

“I told him this is my land, not his,” said Mr. Valenzuela, who was finally allowed to proceed after the agent radioed supervisors.

Mr. Valenzuela said he would not be surprised if a big fence eventually went up, but Ms. Juan-Saunders said she would affirm the tribe’s concerns to Congress and the Homeland Security department. She said she would await final word on the fence and its design before taking action.

Members of Congress she has met, she said, “recognize we pose some unique issues to them, and that was really what we are attempting to do, to educate them to our unique situation.”

The House last week approved a Republican-backed bill 238 to 138 calling for double-layer fencing along a third of the 2,000-mile-long border, roughly from Calexico, Calif., to Douglas, Ariz.

There is considerable support for the idea in the Senate, although President Bush’s position on the proposal remains uncertain. The Homeland Security secretary, Michael Chertoff, has expressed doubts about sealing the border with fences.

    Border Fence Must Skirt Objections From Arizona Tribe, NYT, 20.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/20/washington/20fence.html?hp&ex=1158811200&en=73ed85588ac12201&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Rebuff for Bush on Terror Trials in a Senate Test

September 15, 2006
The New York Times
By KATE ZERNIKE

WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 — The Senate Armed Services Committee defied President Bush on Thursday, with four Republicans joining Democrats in approving a plan for the trial and interrogation of terrorism suspects that the White House has rejected as unacceptable.

The Republican rebellion was led by Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the committee chairman, with backing from Senators John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine.

The White House had said their legislation would leave the United States no option but to shut down a C.I.A. program to interrogate high-level terrorism suspects.

The vote came on a frantic day of Republican infighting and despite an all-out effort by the White House to win support for its own approach, which provides far fewer protections for detainees.

Mr. Bush traveled to Capitol Hill with Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday morning. The administration also released a brief letter in which the top lawyers for the military branches said they found no legal objection to the White House proposal to redefine a key provision of the Geneva Conventions.

But Colin L. Powell, Mr. Bush’s former secretary of state, sided with the senators, saying in a letter that the president’s plan to redefine the Geneva Conventions would encourage the world to “doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,” and “put our own troops at risk.”

Mr. Powell’s statement amounted to a rare public breach with the White House he served, but reflected his strong opposition while in office to the administration’s assertions, beginning shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, that the war against Al Qaeda should not be bound by the Geneva Conventions.

The White House made clear that it would fight on despite the Republican rebellion, with Mr. Bush saying he would “resist any bill’’ that did not provide a legal basis for the C.I.A. to continue to employ what he has called “alternative interrogation practices’’ for terrorism suspects.

The main dispute between the White House and the Senate Republicans revolves around a provision known as Common Article 3, which prohibits inhumane treatment of combatants seized in wartime. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, has argued that the article’s prohibition against “outrages upon personal dignity” must be clarified so that troops and C.I.A. personnel know what is permissible in the interrogation of terrorism suspects.

But Senators Warner, McCain and Graham say the Bush proposal would send a signal that the United States has abandoned its commitment to human rights, and invite other nations to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions as they see fit, eliminating protections for American troops seized in future conflicts.

The senators also dismissed the letter from the military lawyers, saying they had questions about whether it amounted to an authentic endorsement of the White House proposal. They said they put more weight on extensive public testimony in which the lawyers raised doubts about the Bush plan.

Some military officials briefed on the military lawyers’ position also disputed the notion that the lawyers had reversed course. They said the lawyers agreed to sign a letter at a meeting on Wednesday after discussing the language over several hours.

The lawyers would agree only to say that they could not find anything illegal about the specific issue of amending Common Article 3, the defense officials said, but still do not endorse several points in the administration’s approach.

The senators say their bill will protect the C.I.A. by refining the war crimes act, which criminalizes violations of Common Article 3, to specifically enumerate what violations constitute war crimes.

“What General Hayden wants us to do is immunize him not from liability but from criticism,” Mr. McCain said after the vote, “because if one of his techniques is made public and he gets criticized, then he can say, ‘Well, Congress told me to do it.’ He’s trying to protect his reputation at the risk of America’s reputation.”

The other chief dispute concerns the evidence admitted at trial. The Bush plan would allow hearsay and evidence obtained by coercion if it is considered reliable, while the Senate proposal would exclude any testimony obtained by “cruel inhuman, or degrading treatment.”

The White House would bar the suspect from seeing classified evidence shown to the jury weighing his case; the senators say that this amounts to a secret trial, and that the suspect must be allowed to see anything the jury sees. They offered a compromise under which a judge would substitute a declassified summary of the evidence.

The committee vote was 15 to 9, with all Democrats joining the four Republicans. The measure now goes to the Senate floor, where Senators Warner, Graham and McCain believe they have a majority made up of Democrats and as many as a half-dozen other Republicans.

Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, warned the administration against taking on Mr. McCain, a former prisoner of war.

“They’re trying to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions,’’ Mr. Levin said, “but the best expert on that is somebody who has very personal experience with those who violate Geneva, and that’s Senator McCain.”

The situation in the House is very different, with that chamber on track to approve the measure backed by the White House.

“We’ll do what the president wants,” said Representative Duncan Hunter of California, the Republican who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

The White House and Republicans on either side of the issue maneuvered furiously for advantage all day.

As the Senate Armed Services Committee met to vote on its alternative to the president’s legislation, an anonymous Republican invoked a Senate rule to stop it from meeting, forcing Mr. Warner to go to the Senate floor to ask that the hold be lifted. He then praised the Democrats for being “totally cooperative” on the issue, a pointed rebuke to members of his own party who have been pushing the White House view. And he prevailed upon Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Republican leader, to persuade the senator calling for the hold to lift it.

The White House must now decide whether to press its allies in the Senate to amend the bill on the floor, or to step back and wait until the bill passes and the House and Senate work out differences in conference.

The bill may face amendment in any case. Some Democrats object to a provision that would block detainees from challenging their detention in court. More than two dozen retired federal judges sent a letter to Congress arguing that such a provision would lead to unlawful permanent detention, and defy Supreme Court precedent.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Mark Mazzetti and Carl Hulse contributed reporting.

    Rebuff for Bush on Terror Trials in a Senate Test, NYT, 15.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/washington/15detain.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Despite Pledges, Congress Clings to Pet Projects

September 14, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 — Nine months after Congressional leaders vowed to respond to several bribery scandals with comprehensive reforms, their pledges have come to next to nothing.

On Wednesday, leaders of the House prepared to take up a rule requiring individual lawmakers to sign their names to some of the pet projects they tuck into major tax and spending bills. As an internal House rule, the requirement would be in effect only until the end of the session, just a few weeks away.

While reform advocates denounced the proposal as nearly toothless, its bite was still too sharp for many in Congress. By Wednesday night the resolution appeared to be bogged down in a three-way squabble among Republicans, Democrats and the powerful members of the House Appropriations Committee.

“It has been a very pathetic showing,” said Mary Boyle, a spokeswoman for the reform group Common Cause. Even with one congressman in jail, a well-known lobbyist on the way and several other members and staff members still under investigation, she said: “The response to this has been nothing. It has been silence.”

The resolution was a chance for House Republican leaders to make good on at least some element of their pledges in January, when Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the majority leader, declared his party’s agenda at risk “because of a growing perception that Congress is for sale” and Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois declared that “now is the time for action.”

The Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff had recently pleaded guilty to paying bribes to members of Congress, including treating some to a lavish golf trip to Scotland. Former Representative Randy Cunningham, Republican of California, had pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from a military contractor. Both scandals involved lobbyists paying bribes for “earmarks” — the special interest projects inserted into major spending bills by individual lawmakers, often anonymously and with little scrutiny. House Republican attempts at new rules have been dismissed as paltry by both reform advocates and Democrats. Mr. Hastert initially called for a ban on all Congressional travel at private expense and tightening the limits on lobbyists’ gifts to lawmakers and staff (the current limit is $50, or $250 if the recipient is considered a friend). Others pushed for doubling the one-year waiting period before departing lawmakers and staff members can lobby their former colleagues.

But the lobbying reform bill that passed the House this year was scaled back to drop all these ideas. Instead, it focused on requiring lobbyists to disclose more of their dealings with members and staffs. The Senate passed a very different bill, and aides in both chambers say they are not expected to be reconciled into a final bill this year.

The final thrust of the House reform agenda was a measure to address earmarks — a favorite idea of Mr. Boehner. He initially called for substantive restrictions on their insertion in spending bills but eventually settled for a measure to at least illuminate the murky practice by requiring the public identification of the member who sought each earmark.

But the Republican leaders’ draft resolution defined earmarks only as funds for organizations outside the federal government, like cities, universities, museums or nonprofit groups. It would not apply to earmarks directing money to the Defense Department or other federal agencies to execute projects, which account for the vast majority of the federal money spent on earmarks.

Some called the proposed rule almost pointless since members are often eager to boast of the earmarks they secure for constituents. “There is an element you can’t legislate, and that is shame,” said Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona and a frequent critic of earmarks. “You have got to have some embarrassment when you bring to the floor an earmark for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

But the members of the House Appropriations Committee found even that too onerous. The appropriators, who have authority over all federal discretionary spending, objected from the start that the Republican leaders were unfairly singling out their favored projects without imposing the same level of scrutiny on the special interest provisions that other committees tuck into tax bills or other laws.

On Wednesday afternoon, Representative Jerry Lewis, Republican of California, who is chairman of the Appropriations Committee, convened a meeting of the 64-member committee to consider a draft of the proposed rule. Although the Republican leaders had added some new requirements for disclosure by tax committees and others, the appropriators deemed them inadequate. (Mr. Lewis’s ties to a lobbyist who procured earmarks are currently under scrutiny by federal investigators; he has said he did nothing wrong.)

After the meeting, the appropriators demanded changes and threatened to oppose the resolution, said John Scofield, a spokesman for the committee. “We delivered a message to the leaders that we are not there yet,” Mr. Scofield said, adding that the committee plans to consider earmark disclosure requirements of its own next week.

House Democrats, meanwhile, submitted a proposed amendment to the Republican resolution that was so comprehensive it would upend much of the way Washington does business — and thus was all but certain to fail.

The Democratic proposal would block members of Congress from sponsoring earmarks that would benefit any former staff members or family members. Many Congressional staff members and lawmakers’ relatives eventually work as lobbyists, and the proposal would limit their ability to make money for seeking earmarks for their clients.

Jo Maney, a spokeswoman for the Republican-controlled House rules committee, said the committee rejected the proposal as too broadly worded and “poorly thought out.”

Although it is unlikely that such a far-reaching proposal could pass a vote of the Democratic caucus, its rejection by the Republicans could give the Democrats a pretext for opposing the Republicans’ milder reform proposal as too weak.

“Transparency is not enough,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, who was a sponsor of the proposal. “You can’t be pushing for earmarks that are a clear conflict of interest.” Asked if he believed most Democrats would support his measure, Mr. Van Hollen challenged Republicans to put it to a vote.

If Democrats and the Republican appropriators are opposed to the resolution, it would stand little chance of passing.

Late Wednesday night, Ms. Maney of the Rules committee said the panel was meeting to work out technical changes.

But Fred Wertheimer, president of the reform advocacy group Democracy 21, called the dispute over the scaled-back earmark rule “absurd.”

“They have had months to reach an agreement even among House Republicans about what this fig leaf should look like,” he said, “and they still haven’t been able to do it.”

    Despite Pledges, Congress Clings to Pet Projects, NYT, 14.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/washington/14earmarks.html?hp&ex=1158292800&en=1e28bbeeb5228483&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Panel in Senate Backs Bush Plan for Eavesdropping

September 14, 2006
The New York Times
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and KATE ZERNIKE

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 — The White House took a critical step on Wednesday in its effort to get Congressional blessing for President Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program, but it ran into increasingly fierce resistance from leading Republicans over its plan to try terror suspects being held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The mixed results signaled the tough road the White House faces in trying to sell the two key planks in its national security agenda to sometimes skeptical Congressional Republicans less than two months before the midterm elections.

Democrats have allowed Republicans to fight among themselves over the issues, and appear willing to allow the issues to come to a vote rather than risk charges of political obstructionism in an election season.

The White House has turned its focus to Capitol Hill as part of a broad push to shift the public debate toward national security and away from Iraq. After kicking off the campaign in a series of recent speeches, Mr. Bush is scheduled to visit Capitol Hill on Thursday morning to rally support for his proposals.

On the domestic eavesdropping program, strong White House lobbying began to pay dividends on Wednesday as the Senate Judiciary Committee approved on a party-line vote two legislative approaches favored by the White House, along with a third the Bush administration opposes. The program would allow the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a warrant on the international phone calls and e-mail of people in the United States.

But negotiations between Capitol Hill and the White House broke down as three Republican senators crucial to passage of the legislation hardened their stance against a White House plan that would reinterpret a main provision of the Geneva Conventions.

Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the committee would vote Thursday in a closed session on an alternative that he and his two chief allies — Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona — have championed, even if the White House refuses to go along with them. The senators have said changes to the American interpretation of the provision of the Geneva Conventions, known as Common Article 3, would undermine the nation’s international credibility and open the way for other countries to treat captured American troops at their whim.

“This is not about November 2006. It is not about your election. It is about those who take risks to defend America,” Mr. Graham said.

The administration pushed back, convening a conference call in which John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, described the Senate alternative as unacceptable. Mr. Negroponte said the plan would impose intolerable limits on any interrogation methods American intelligence officers might use against future terror suspects held by the Central Intelligence Agency in secret overseas prisons.

Dan Bartlett, a senior aide to Mr. Bush, said the dispute with the Senate Republicans “may require us to go our different ways for now and try to come back in conference.”

The House appears on track to endorse the White House proposal, with the House Armed Services Committee voting overwhelmingly on Wednesday in favor of a bill that looks much like the president’s.

The White House political strategy in the past week has been twofold: first, putting Mr. Bush in the public spotlight with a string of national security speeches, and now, trying to put Democrats in a box by forcing them to take a stand and vote on Mr. Bush’s authority to run two of his most controversial antiterror programs.

But Senators Warner, McCain and Graham appeared to be providing cover for the Democrats, allowing them to stay on the sidelines while the three senators, respected Republicans with distinguished military records, take on the White House.

“We think that this is a sincere effort, based on principle, by Senators Warner, McCain and Graham, to come up with the best legislation they can,” said Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Asked whether Democrats were worried that the Republicans might yield to the White House, Mr. Reed said: “I haven’t seen any evidence of that yet. What I’ve seen is that they’re approaching this looking at the substance, not just over weeks and months, but what’s in the best interests of the United States, what’s in the best interests of American military personnel who might years from now be held.”

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, has been pushing the administration’s point of view, and Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, has said he may bring the president’s legislation to the floor, rather than the one backed by the three senators.

Mr. Warner and his allies have warned that if that happens, they will introduce amendments to make the president’s legislation look like theirs. The senators have military leaders on their side, and in a letter sent to the Armed Services Committee on Thursday, 27 retired military leaders urged Congress to reject the White House proposal to reinterpret the definition of Common Article 3.

The letter said the proposal “poses a grave threat to American service members, now and in future wars,” noting that American troops are now deployed in areas where the article is their only source of protection if they are captured.

“If degradation, humiliation, physical and mental brutalization of prisoners is decriminalized or considered permissible under a restrictive interpretation of Common Article 3,’’ the letter warned, “we will forfeit all credible objections should such barbaric practices be inflicted upon American prisoners.”

The administration had also faced resistance over the N.S.A. wiretapping program. The Democrats had bottled up the administration’s proposals, saying Congress was being forced to legislate “in the dark” about a secret program that few members had been briefed on. They have repeatedly used procedural maneuvers to block the proposals from coming to a vote in the Judiciary Committee, drawing accusations of obstructionism from Republicans.

But Democrats, who appeared to realize the risk of being accused of thwarting debate on national security matters, did not stand in the way of the committee vote on Wednesday.

With Republicans united in support, the panel approved on a 10-to-8 vote a hotly debated plan drawn in negotiations with the White House by Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee chairman. The plan would allow a secret court to rule on the constitutionality of the wiretapping program. It would also implicitly recognize the president’s constitutional authority to gather foreign intelligence, a concession Democrats and civil rights advocates contend would expand the president’s authority to eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant.

The panel also approved a proposal by Senator Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio, that would require the administration to notify Congress when it conducted wiretaps without a warrant.

Democrats claimed a partial victory on the wiretapping issue when they won Judiciary Committee approval of another measure that could effectively ban the security agency’s eavesdropping program.

That plan, drafted by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, would affirm that the foreign intelligence law passed by Congress in 1978, requiring court approval for eavesdropping, as the “exclusive” means of authorizing wiretaps in the United States against suspected terrorists and spies.

Democrats succeeded in getting two Republican moderates, Mr. Specter and Mr. Graham, both of whom had voiced concerns over the legal aspects of the wiretapping program, to vote in favor of the proposal and send it to the full Senate.

That set the stage for the unusual spectacle of the Judiciary Committee — and its chairman — supporting two proposals that many lawmakers said would effectively nullify each other if passed.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting.

    Panel in Senate Backs Bush Plan for Eavesdropping, NYT, 14.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/washington/14capital.html?hp&ex=1158292800&en=a3d7084e273528f0&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Democratic Effort to Limit Surveillance Bill Is Blocked

September 13, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:49 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Republicans blocked Democratic attempts to rein in President Bush's domestic wiretapping program Wednesday, endorsing a White House-supported bill that would give the controversial surveillance legal status.

Under pressure from the Bush administration for quick action, the full Senate could take up the measure next week.

Progress on a companion bill in the House was not as tidy, in part because GOP leaders and Bush are intensely negotiating restrictions it proposes on the surveillance program. Even as the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced Chairman Arlen Specter's bill to the Senate floor on a party line vote, the same panel in the House abruptly canceled its scheduled markup.

The developments come amid a sustained White House campaign to persuade Congress to give the administration broad authority to monitor, interrogate and prosecute terrorism suspects. The administration is up against an election season in which Republicans are struggling to keep its majority with approval from a war-weary electorate.

Specter, R-Pa., has acknowledged that GOP lawmakers fighting for re-election may not embrace a measure bearing Bush's stamp of approval.

While refusing to give the president a blank check to prosecute the war on terrorism, Republicans in the Senate Judiciary Committee kept to the White House's condition that a bill giving legal status to the surveillance program pass unamended. That's not a sure thing on the Senate floor, where several amendments await the measure.

The panel also approved other measures relating to the program, some of which contradict Specter's bill -- meaning the possibility of even more debate on the Senate floor.

But Specter's bill survived the committee vote unchanged. Republicans defeated several Democratic amendments, including measures to insert a one-year expiration date into the bill and require the National Security Agency to report more often to Congress on the standards for its domestic surveillance program.

''We just don't want to see Americans' rights abused for the next 50 or 60 years because of an oversight on our part,'' said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who joined some Republicans in opposing some amendments offered by her Democratic colleagues.

But Republicans countered that the bill represented the best deal on the matter and should not be amended.

The deal is part of the White House's election-season campaign to preserve its ability to fight the war on terror despite congressional concerns about civil liberties.

A parade of White House officials seeking support for legal tools against terrorists was to culminate Thursday with an appearance by Bush himself before House Republicans anxious to maintain their majority in the November elections.

Behind-the-scenes negotiations were intense Wednesday. As the Senate bill moved toward committee approval, the House Judiciary Committee abruptly canceled its markup that had been scheduled to happen simultaneously. The reason for the cancellation wasn't immediately clear.

Sponsored by Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., and endorsed by House GOP leaders, that measure would require the president to wait until an attack has occurred to initiate wiretapping without warrants, a provision administration officials say would hamper the White House's ability to prevent attacks.

Specter's bill would submit the warrantless wiretapping program to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court for a one-time constitutional review and extend from the current three days to seven days the time allowed for emergency surveillance before a warrant application is submitted and approved by that court.

Vice President Dick Cheney and other top aides encountered stiff resistance from senators and House leaders this week during visits to Capitol Hill. The standoffs raised questions about whether the president could unite Republicans on his anti-terror agenda before November's midterm elections.

Associated Press Writer Anne Plummer Flaherty contributed to this report.

    Democratic Effort to Limit Surveillance Bill Is Blocked, NYT, 13.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Congress-Terrorism.html?hp&ex=1158206400&en=559efc62c3ef83bb&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Deal Reported Near on Rights of Suspects in Terror Cases

September 13, 2006
The New York Times
By KATE ZERNIKE

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 — The leading Senate Republicans negotiating over proposed legislation to bring terror suspects to trial said Tuesday that they were close to a compromise on a main dispute with the White House: whether suspects had the right to see all the evidence used against them.

But the Senate Republicans warned that they would not go along with a White House proposal to redefine the provision of the Geneva Conventions that broadly guarantees humane treatment of detainees.

That provision, known as Common Article 3, prohibits “violence to life and person” and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.”

The Supreme Court, in striking down military tribunals that the White House established after the Sept. 11 attacks, said the guarantee had to apply to terror suspects.

The administration has proposed narrowing the provision, arguing that it is too vague and does not give interrogators enough guidance in how to treat detainees. Under the War Crimes Act, interrogators who violate the article can face the death penalty.

Senator John McCain of Arizona said he and two other Republican senators crucial to the discussions, John W. Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, would not agree to any narrowing of the provision.

Mr. McCain said such a move could send a message about the nation’s support for human rights and the precedent it might set for special forces captured by other countries.

“On the detainee-treatment issue,” he said, “Senator Warner and I and Senator Graham and others are not going to agree to changes in the definitions in Common Article 3, because that then sends the message to the world that we are not going to adhere fully to the Geneva Conventions. And we worry about, in the future, other nations maybe deciding to interpret Common Article 3 to their own purposes.”

Mr. McCain is influential on detainee questions because of his years as a Vietnam prisoner of war. The three senators made their appeal for their approach at the weekly Republican Party lunch after a presentation by Vice President Dick Cheney.

In addition to talking with Mr. Cheney, the senators have extensively negotiated with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, also discussed the topic on Tuesday with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The compromise on classified evidence would have a judge review the evidence and give a summary to be presented to the jury and the accused. Anything less, the senators have said, would constitute a secret trial.

The White House bill proposed last week would deny a suspect the right to see classified evidence that the jury might use to convict him.

Mr. Graham said the White House was “O.K.” with the compromise.

To address the White House concerns over Common Article 3, Mr. Graham said, the Senate would agree to redefine the War Crimes Act and make more specific the provision in it that says a violation of Common Article 3 is punishable by death.

“The administration is concerned that Common Article 3 can be used to sue our guys, to put our guys in jail, that they’re in an unfair position, and I would agree,” Mr. Graham said.

The changes, he added, said, would define the cases in which “grave breaches” of Common Article 3 constitute a war crime and would bar “serious criminal physical misconduct and inhumane treatment of a serious nature.”

    Deal Reported Near on Rights of Suspects in Terror Cases, NYT, 13.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/13/washington/13detain.html

C.I.A. Said to Find No Hussein Link to Terror Chief

September 9, 2006
The New York Times
By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 — The Central Intelligence Agency last fall repudiated the claim that there were prewar ties between Saddam Hussein’s government and an operative of Al Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to a report issued Friday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The disclosure undercuts continuing assertions by the Bush administration that such ties existed, and that they provided evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The Republican-controlled committee, in a second report, also sharply criticized the administration for its reliance on the Iraqi National Congress during the prelude to the war in Iraq.

The findings are part of a continuing inquiry by the committee into prewar intelligence about Iraq. The conclusions went beyond its earlier findings, issued in the summer of 2004, by including criticism not just of American intelligence agencies but also of the administration.

Several Republicans strongly dissented on the report with conclusions about the Iraqi National Congress, saying they overstated the role that the exile group had played in the prewar intelligence assessments about Iraq. But the committee overwhelmingly approved the other report, with only one Republican senator voting against it.

The reports did not address the politically divisive question of whether the Bush administration had exaggerated or misused intelligence as part of its effort to win support for the war. But one report did contradict the administration’s assertions, made before the war and since, that ties between Mr. Zarqawi and Mr. Hussein’s government provided evidence of a close relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

As recently as Aug. 21, President Bush said at a news conference that Mr. Hussein “had relations with Zarqawi.’’ But a C.I.A. report completed in October 2005 concluded instead that Mr. Hussein’s government “did not have a relationship, harbor or even turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates,” according to the new Senate findings.

The C.I.A. report also contradicted claims made in February 2003 by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who mentioned Mr. Zarqawi no fewer than 20 times during a speech to the United Nations Security Council that made the administration’s case for going to war. In that speech, Mr. Powell said that Iraq “today harbors a deadly terrorist network’’ headed by Mr. Zarqawi, and dismissed as “not credible’’ assertions by the Iraqi government that it had no knowledge of Mr. Zarqawi’s whereabouts.

The panel concluded that Mr. Hussein regarded Al Qaeda as a threat rather than a potential ally, and that the Iraqi intelligence service “actively attempted to locate and capture al-Zarqawi without success.’’

One of the reports by the committee criticized a decision by the National Security Council in 2002 to maintain a close relationship with the Iraqi National Congress, headed by the exile leader Ahmad Chalabi, even after the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency had warned that “the I.N.C was penetrated by hostile intelligence services,” notably Iran.

The report concluded that the organization had provided a large volume of flawed intelligence to the United States about Iraq, and concluded that the group “attempted to influence United States policy on Iraq by providing false information through defectors directed at convincing the United States that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had links to terrorists.”

The findings were released at an inopportune time for the Bush administration, which has spent the week trying to turn voters’ attention away from the missteps on Iraq and toward the more comfortable political territory of the continued terrorist threat. On Friday, the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, played down the reports, saying that they contained “nothing new” and were “re-litigating things that happened three years ago.”

“The important thing to do is to figure out what you’re doing tomorrow, and the day after, and the month after, and the year after to make sure that this war on terror is won,” Mr. Snow said.

The two reports released Friday were expected to be the least controversial aspects of what remains of the Senate committee’s investigation, which will eventually address whether the Bush administration’s assertions about Iraq accurately reflected the available intelligence. But unanticipated delays caused them to be released in the heat of the fall political campaign.

The reports were approved by the committee in August, but went through a monthlong declassification process. It was Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the committee’s Republican chairman, who set early September as the release date.

The committee’s report in 2004, which lambasted intelligence agencies for vastly overestimating the state of Iraq’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, was issued with unanimous approval. But the reports released Friday provided evidence of how much the relationship between Republicans and Democrats on the committee had degenerated over the past two years.

A set of conclusions that included criticism of the administration’s ties with the Iraqi National Congress was opposed by several Republicans on the panel, including Mr. Roberts, but was approved with the support of two Republicans, Chuck Hagel, of Nebraska, and Olympia Snowe, of Maine, along with all seven Democrats. Senator Roberts even took the unusual step of disavowing the conclusions about the role played by the Iraqi National Congress, saying that they were “misleading and are not supported by the facts.”

The report about the group’s role concluded that faulty intelligence from the group made its way into several prewar intelligence reports, including the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that directly preceded the Senate vote on the Iraq war. It says that sources introduced to American intelligence by the group directly influenced two key judgments of that document: that Mr. Hussein possessed mobile biological weapons laboratories and that he was trying to reconstitute his nuclear program.

The report said there was insufficient evidence to determine whether one of the most notorious of the intelligence sources used by the United States before the Iraq war was tied to the Iraqi National Congress. The source, an Iraqi who was code-named Curveball, was a crucial source for the American view that Mr. Hussein had a mobile biological weapons program, but the information that he provided was later entirely discredited.

The report said other mistaken information about Iraq’s biological program had been provided by a source linked to the Iraqi National Congress, and it said the intelligence agencies’ use of the information had “constituted a serious error.’’

The dissenting opinion, signed by Mr. Roberts and four other Republican members of the committee, minimized the role played by Mr. Chalabi’s group. “Information from the I.N.C. and I.N.C.-affiliated defectors was not widely used in intelligence community products and played little role in the intelligence community’s judgments about Iraq’s W.M.D. programs,” the Republicans said.

Francis Brooke, a spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, called the report “tendentious, partisan and misleading,” and said that the group had not played a central role as the Bush administration built the case for war.

At the same time, Mr. Brooke said his organization was surprised at how little the American government knew about Mr. Hussein’s government before the war, which may have forced the American officials to rely more heavily on the organization. “We did not realize the paucity of human intelligence that the administration had on Iraq,” he said.

    C.I.A. Said to Find No Hussein Link to Terror Chief, NYT, 9.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/09/world/middleeast/09intel.html?hp&ex=1157860800&en=6b11a9b2ce4125ad&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Senate deflects push for Rumsfeld's ouster

Wed Sep 6, 2006 8:54 PM ET
Reuters
By Vicki Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a no-confidence vote on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as Democrats sought to keep attention on the unpopular Iraq war before November's congressional elections.

Trying to stem the drag on their poll numbers caused by Iraq, Republicans denounced as a political stunt the Democrats' resolution urging President George W. Bush to replace Rumsfeld, whom they depict as a symbol of the war's failures, and to "change course in Iraq to provide a strategy for success."

"The Democrat amendment may rile up the liberal base, but it won't kill a single terrorist or prevent a single attack," Senate Republican Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said of the amendment that capped growing demands from Democrats for Rumsfeld's ouster.

But Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, called for "accountability for this breathtaking incompetence which has put our soldiers in daily danger and weakened American national security."

While Democrats blasted Rumsfeld as a key architect of the war, they said the problem was broader than the secretary and that Bush must abandon failing policies.

Most Democrats want a plan to start withdrawing U.S. troops but without a deadline to complete the pullout, while the administration says it will keep troops in Iraq as long as necessary.

Republicans also defeated an amendment to make the administration report quarterly to Congress on the extent to which Iraq is in a civil war, which Democrats said was needed to counteract the administration's repeated denials the mounting sectarian violence amounted to civil war.

With control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate at stake in November's midterm elections, Republicans portrayed Democrats as weak on terrorism, while Democrats decried the administration's handling of the 3-1/2 year war in which more than 2,600 U.S. service members have died.

The White House accused Democrats on Tuesday of trying to turn Rumsfeld into a "boogeyman" before the elections, and dismissed calls for his dismissal.

A Republican who has fiercely criticized Rumsfeld, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said Bush deserved to have his choice to head the Pentagon.

But some Republicans in tight races have distanced themselves from the defense secretary who is known for his sometimes glib and combative comments.

The 74-year-old Rumsfeld -- one of the longest-serving defense secretaries -- came under renewed fire last week for a speech to the American Legion in which he likened critics of the administration's Iraq policies to those who appeased Nazi Germany before World War Two.

Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, called it a "low and ugly political speech, smearing those who dissent from the catastrophic policy."

Kerry added, "I think it's immoral for old men to send young Americans to fight and die in conflict with a strategy that is failing, and a mission that has not weakened terrorism but strengthened it."

    Senate deflects push for Rumsfeld's ouster, R, 6.9.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-09-07T005405Z_01_N064374_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-RUMSFELD.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-politicsNews-3