The White House and a group of renegade Senate Republicans stepped up talks Tuesday in a bid to break the impasse over President Bush's plan to interrogate and try foreign terrorism suspects.
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a leading opponent of Bush's bill, said his confidence that a deal would be reached was "growing by the moment" on the legislation needed to hold trials of foreign suspects picked up since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The United States has faced international criticism for the indefinite detention of prisoners at the U.S naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Rights groups and others have accused the United States of torture and abuse of detainees.
Graham, with John Warner of Virginia and John McCain of Arizona, swapped proposals with the White House to resolve differences over Bush's bill that they said would subject detainees to abusive interrogations and unfair trials.
The senators would not discuss details of the negotiations that centered on the White House's plan to have Congress define more narrowly the Geneva Conventions' requirement for humane treatment of prisoners.
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Bush's original plan for terrorism suspects' trials, and with Congress to break at the end of the month to campaign for the November election, Republicans are rushing to pass the bill so the trials can be held.
Political goals
The House also is set to vote on the bill before the October recess. Some House Republicans have voiced concerns about Bush's plan, and moderate Reps. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, Mike Castle of Delaware, Jim Leach of Iowa and Jim Walsh of New York went on record backing the senators' bill.
The Republicans' split over detainees has complicated their pre-election efforts to depict themselves as tougher on terrorism than Democrats. Still South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint said Bush's rising approval ratings suggest he was winning the national security debate.
"If Democrats look at the polls they would probably see that the president is gaining every day that they try to obstruct him," DeMint said.
A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll Tuesday showed Bush's approval rating has bounced up five points to 44 percent, the highest in a year.
Bush in a speech last week said a CIA program to extract information from suspected terrorists was doomed unless Congress clarified unacceptable methods.
The administration contends interrogators could be prosecuted under the Geneva Conventions' broad standard barring humiliating and degrading treatment.
But the senators have balked at adding the definitions, saying it would be interpreted around the world as weakening the standards and would haunt U.S. personnel in future wars.
Trying to unite Republicans behind Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee blasted bill offered by fellow Republican senators, which he said would "allow terrorists access to classified information" and would subject U.S. personnel "to international courts and vague standards."
Neither the senators' bill, which cleared the Armed Services Committee last week, nor Bush's bill has the 60 votes necessary in the Senate to pass most bills.
Democrats are backing Warner, McCain, and Graham, giving them enough votes to block Bush's bill in the Senate.
Republican leaders also scrambled to build support for legislation that could provide a congressional blessing and increased oversight to Bush's warrantless domestic spying program.