Rice relates rules about POWs but leaves questions on torture

KIEV, Ukraine — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave the Bush administration's most comprehensive accounting yet of U.S. rules on treatment of prisoners in the war on terrorism Wednesday, but her assurances left loopholes for practices that could be akin to torture.

Rice said cruel and degrading interrogation methods are off limits for all U.S. personnel at home and abroad. But she gave no examples of banned practices, did not define the meaning of cruelty or degradation, did not say if the rules would apply to private contractors or foreign interrogators and made no mention of whether exceptions would be allowed.

"As a matter of U.S. policy," Rice said during a press conference with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, the United Nations Convention Against Torture "extends to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the U.S. or outside the U.S."

Rice's remarks came as a top House Republican negotiator appeared willing to accept Senate-approved legislation, unchanged, banning the "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" of foreign suspects anywhere in U.S. custody and requiring uniform interrogation techniques, congressional aides said.

The provisions on detainee treatment were sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and passed the Senate overwhelmingly. The Bush administration initially threatened to veto the legislation and House GOP leaders also initially opposed it.

But with McCain's provision winning broad support from lawmakers, White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley has tried to reach a compromise with the senator, and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., proposed leaving McCain's provision intact in a final defense bill.

Debate has raged in the United States over the government policies for holding and questioning detainees, including Bush administration statements that a ban on cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment did not apply to detainees held overseas. In practice, that could mean CIA employees could use methods in overseas prisons that would not be allowed in the United States.

"It's about time," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said of Rice's remarks. "Shame on us that it took so long for the administration" to make such a determination, she said.

Rice's remarks came amid strong and sustained criticism among European allies and others around the world over techniques such as "waterboarding," in which prisoners are strapped to a plank over water and made to fear they may be drowned.