By Anne Plummer Flaherty
The Associated Press
Thursday 28 September 2006
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Washington - The House approved legislation Wednesday giving the Bush administration authority to interrogate and
prosecute terrorism detainees, moving President Bush to the edge of a pre-election victory with a key piece of his
anti-terror plan.
The mostly party-line 253-168 vote in the Republican-run House prompted bitter charges afterward by House Speaker
Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., that opposition Democrats were coddling terrorists, perhaps foreshadowing campaign attack ads to
come. Democrats responded that the GOP leader was trying to provoke fear.
Even as the House debated the bill, senators of the two parties agreed to limit debate on their own nearly identical
measure, all but ensuring its passage on Thursday.
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The New York Times | Editorial
Thursday 28 September 2006
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Here's what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless
politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans' fear of losing their majority to push through
ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old
nation of laws - while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles
to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.
Republicans say Congress must act right now to create procedures for charging and trying terrorists - because the men
accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks are available for trial. That's pure propaganda. Those men could have been tried
and convicted long ago, but President Bush chose not to. He held them in illegal detention, had them questioned in ways
that will make real trials very hard, and invented a transparently illegal system of kangaroo courts to convict them.
It was only after the Supreme Court issued the inevitable ruling striking down Mr. Bush's shadow penal system that he
adopted his tone of urgency. It serves a cynical goal: Republican strategists think they can win this fall, not by
passing a good law but by forcing Democrats to vote against a bad one so they could be made to look soft on terrorism.
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ENDS