US House and Senate negotiators working on an intelligence bill have agreed to limit CIA interrogators to techniques approved by the military.
Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees decided to include the ban while working out differences in their respective bills authorising 2008 spending for intelligence programmes.
Details of the bill, which would would bar CIA interrogators from using such methods as waterboarding, are to be made public today.
That will set the stage for another veto fight with President Bush, who last summer issued an executive ordered allowing the CIA to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" that go beyond what is allowed in the 2006 army field manual.
The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 prohibited cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment for all detainees in US custody, including CIA prisoners. CIA director Michael Hayden last year prohibited the use of waterboarding, which simulates drowning, but has been publicly silent on other interrogation techniques.
In a speech in September, Mr Hayden said he does not believe the CIA should be constrained by military interrogation rules.
He argued that CIA interrogators are older and as a rule better trained than military interrogators.
The 384-page army manual describes 19 legal interrogation techniques, including "good cop/bad cop;" "false flag" - making prisoners think they are in the custody of another country; and the separation of a prisoner from other prisoners for up to 30 days at a time.
It prohibits waterboarding and sensory deprivation.
AP