Congress Thursday approved a defence bill requiring the military to handle suspected foreign militants allied with al Qaeda, sending it to President Barack Obama for his expected signature into law. Final action came when the Senate approved the bill in an 86-13 vote, a day after Obama retreated from a veto threat on the legislation.
The administration was unhappy with the intrusion into its authority over counterterrorism matters but relented when some of its flexibility was restored. Other critics complained the measure allowed the indefinite military detention of terrorism suspects, including Americans. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation on Thursday that she said would seek to clarify that indefinite detention could not happen to Americans or anyone apprehended inside the United States.
"I strongly believe US citizens apprehended in the US should never be held in indefinite detention," Feinstein told the Senate just before the vote. The House of Representatives agreed to the defence bill on Wednesday. The measure also imposes sanctions against Iran's central bank and pre-emptively freezes some aid to Pakistan.
The legislation was the latest battle in a long struggle between Obama, a Democrat, and some lawmakers over whether terror suspects should be prosecuted as "enemy combatants" before military commissions and held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or treated as criminal suspects in the US court and prison system.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.