After Congress acted and Bush signed the new law last week, civil libertarians believed Congress and the executive branch were locked into a no-torture agreement. But apparently Bush may override the new law — as the statement posted on the White House Web site says — "in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

McCoy said he's basing his resolution on anti-torture language adopted by a number of national and international groups, including the Red Cross, Amnesty International, even an American librarian association.

"I would think that the people of Utah, especially the Legislature, would be interested in standing against the practice of torture," said McCoy. "Sounds like now the McCain amendment is meaningless in the president's mind — he'll do whatever he wants.

"That's a huge problem to me, and I hope a huge problem for others in this state," McCoy said.

McCoy said he can't understand how anyone can condone torture. "It is against not only what our country stands for, but against our religious, our Judeo-Christian, principles as well."

U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, in a meeting with the Deseret Morning News editorial board Wednesday on other issues, said he was surprised that Bush would take such a stand considering that the McCain anti-terror amendment passed overwhelmingly in both houses of Congress.

"Personally, I think torture is morally wrong. Politically it's a disaster," as the incidents in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq showed, Matheson said. "By a large, bipartisan majority, (Congress) said this should not be our policy."

Some Utah legislative Democrats have already complained that members of the Republican majorities are introducing bills whose real intent is to force votes on controversial political issues, like abortion, during the 2006 election year.

But McCoy denies his anti-torture resolution has any political aims — like forcing legislative Republicans to vote to support their president while many Utahns oppose torture.

Said Knudson: "I won't judge (McCoy's) motives. I like and appreciate him. He may feel very strongly about this. I respect that. But (McCoy) won't get a lot of mileage" on his anti-torture resolution.

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com