Negotations on terror legislation snag - Yahoo! News

It's about time that someone stepped up to stop the little Dictator.

Negotations on terror legislation snag - Yahoo! News:

WASHINGTON - The White House and three powerful GOP senators reached an impasse Wednesday over a Bush administration plan to allow tough CIA interrogations, underscoring election-season divisions among Republicans on the high profile issue of security.

In a direct challenge to President Bush, Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said his panel would meet Thursday to finalize an alternative to the White House plan to prosecute terror suspects and redefine acts that constitute war crimes. Warner, R-Va., said the administration proposal would lower the standard for the treatment of prisoners, potentially putting U.S. troops at risk should other countries retaliate.

The White House said Warner's proposal would undermine the nation's ability to interrogate prisoners and arranged an extraordinary conference call for reporters in which the nation's top intelligence official criticized Warner's plan.

'If this draft legislation were passed in its present form, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency has told me that he did not believe that the (interrogation) program could go forward,' National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said.