Bush gives in on interrogation torture ban laws

US President George Bush reversed course last night and accepted calls for a law banning cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of foreign suspects in the war on terror.

Mr Bush said the agreement would “make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention of torture, whether it be here at home or abroad”.

“It’s a done deal,” said Senator John McCain.

Under the deal, CIA interrogators would be given the same legal rights as members of the military who are accused of breaking interrogation guidelines.

Those rules say the accused can defend themselves by arguing it was reasonable for them to believe they were obeying a legal order.

“We’ve sent a message to the world that the US is not like the terrorists,” Mr McCain said earlier as he sat next to Mr Bush in the Oval Office.

The White House at one point threatened a veto if the ban was included in legislation sent to Mr Bush, and Vice President Dick Cheney made an unusual personal appeal to all Republican senators to give an exemption to the CIA.

But congressional sentiment was overwhelmingly in favour of the ban, and Mr McCain, a former US navy pilot who was held and tortured for five and a half years in Vietnam, adopted the issue.

Mr Bush called Mr McCain “a good man who’s honoured the values of America”.

Mr McCain said there were no loopholes in the agreement. He said he hoped to have the measure passed in Congress within 24 hours. Mr McCain’s amendment would prohibit “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” of anyone in US custody, regardless of where they are held.

The move comes after the European Parliament agreed yesterday to set up a probe into allegations the CIA used European states to illegally transport and detain terrorism suspects.

The investigation comes in the wake of allegations that the US Central Intelligence Agency was operating secret jails in Romania and Poland and covertly flying prisoners through airports in Italy, Germany and Romania.

The Polish government has denied the country hosted secret CIA prisons. Germany denies it played any role in the abduction of one of its citizens who was detained by the US in Afghanistan.