DEBBIE ELLIOTT, host:
This weekend, key Republican members of the Senate Armed Services committee are trying to come to a compromise with the White House over how to interrogate and try terrorism suspects.
President Bush is insisting that Congress act quickly to limit U.S. obligations under the Geneva Conventions. He says CIA interrogators need clarity, and he's insisting that the U.S. be allowed to withhold classified evidence from defendants being tried for terrorism.
Today on ABC's This Week, national security advisor Stephen Hadley reiterated the president's position.
(Soundbite of This Week with George Stephanopoulos)
Mr. STEPHEN HADLEY (National Security Advisor): There's a simple question here: are we going to continue to have a program that effectively and lawfully questioning al-Qaida detainees or are we not? That is the question. If we want that program, then we owe the men and women who are going to run it to give them clear guidance on terms of what law applies, what it requires of them, and clear Congressional support.
Mr. GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC News): Senator McCain says...
ELLIOTT: But three Republicans on the Senate Armed Services committee with military experience believe the program can continue without unilateral changes to a longstanding international treaty.
On CBS's Face The Nation today, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said if the U.S. redefines the way it can treat detainees under the Geneva Conventions, it would open the door for other countries to also create new rules for their secret police. Graham also takes issue with the president's plan to withhold classified evidence from terror suspects.
Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (Republican, South Carolina): What would happen if a CIA agent were captured in Iran trying to suppress their nuclear program, and the Iranian government put this person on trial as a war criminal and the Iranian prosecutor had a file marked secret, gave it to their judge and their jury and said convict this man and they never shared the evidence with the American agent. We would go nuts.
What would we do if the Iranians sentenced an American to death based on evidence the American never saw? We would go crazy.
ELLIOTT: If the roles were reversed, Graham said such a trial could not be called an American trial. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
