Senate bans waterboarding

The Senate votes 51-45 to pass bill containing a ban on waterboarding. More specifically, it restricts the CIA to using interrogation methods listed in the Army Field Manual, which manual specifically prohibits waterboarding. There is good discussion of this over at Balkinization.

For members of the Senate who voted against the bill, go here (note especially, McCain). He'll have some explaining to do.

We await the inevitable Bush veto.

UPDATE: McCain explains. Basically, he voted against the bill not because it opposed waterboarding (which he opposes), but because it restricts the CIA to a specific list of interrogation techniques. He believes the CIA should be able to use techniques beyond those allowed for the armed forces. We don't know what those techniques are, but the basic criterion he applies is 'cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment.' On his view, waterboarding meets this criterion and should be banned. So, he is not flatly contradicting himself. The issue is whether the criterion he employs is sufficient to prohibit the activities we want to prohibit. Evidently not, since the current administration does not believe waterboarding meets the criterion; it doesn't 'shock the conscience' as they put it. But perhaps we shouldn't lay this at McCain's door. We should consider his criterion defective only if it leaves open a reasonable interpretation which allows for waterboarding. However, no one, perhaps even including the administration itself, sincerely believes waterboarding is not cruel, inhumane and degrading.

Now, it is a separate question whether McCain voted correctly. Given the opportunity to ban a morally reprehensible technique (which Bush flatly says he'll use again if he sees the need), McCain chose not to because he thought it would unduly restrict the CIA from using techniques it should be able to use. Such techniques, although not explicitly stated, would include, presumably, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and other things we've seen from Abu Ghraib. Leaving aside the question whether those techniques violate the criterion, we can ask whether permitting them is worth the reality of permitting waterboarding. This question is difficult to answer because there is so little known about what useful intelligence has been actually gained from their use. Bush claims that their use has yielded life-saving intelligence. For the sake of argument, let's say he is telling the truth (gasp!). Can it be shown that the same life-saving intelligence couldn't have been yielded using only the techniques contained in the Army Field Manual?