US: Republican senator John McCain has praised a deal with the White House on the treatment of detainees, claiming that it will lead to fair trials and effective interrogations, but not torture.
"We got what we wanted, and that is the preservation of the Geneva Conventions. There will be no more torture. There will be no more mistreatment of prisoners that would violate standards of conduct we would expect of people who work for the United States of America," he told NBC.
The White House backed away from proposals to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions governing torture and to allow detainees to be convicted on the basis of evidence that they would never see and could not refute.
Mr McCain and his fellow Republican rebels also gave ground, giving President Bush the authority to decide how to implement the Geneva Conventions beyond certain specified "grave breaches" which would constitute war crimes.
Grave breaches would include torture, rape, biological experiments and cruel and inhuman treatment, and CIA interrogators would be immunised from prosecution for using methods which do not constitute such breaches.
It remains unclear if CIA interrogators will still be allowed to subject detainees to sleep-deprivation, cold temperatures and "waterboarding", which simulates drowning.
Mr Bush expressed satisfaction with the deal, which he said would allow the CIA's detainee programme, conducted in secret prisons throughout the world, to continue.
"I'm pleased to say that this agreement preserves the single most potent tool we have in protecting America and foiling terrorist attacks, and that is the CIA programme to question the world's most dangerous terrorists and to get their secrets . . . The agreement clears the way to do what the American people expect us to do - to capture terrorists, to detain terrorists, to question terrorists, and then to try them," he said.
The administration says that no prisoners are currently in CIA custody, following the transfer of 14 detainees from secret prisons to Guantánamo Bay this month. Mr Bush has promised to close Guantánamo and Washington is negotiating with more than 30 countries to repatriate prisoners.
However, the administration wants to put some detainees on trial before military tribunals, where some classified evidence could be withheld from defendants. Under this week's deal, defendants could view classified evidence in "redacted" form, although it is not clear how heavily edited such evidence would be.
Democrats have remained on the sidelines of the debate about how to treat detainees, allowing Mr McCain and other Republicans to take the lead in opposing Mr Bush's initial demands.
Senate minority leader Harry Reid said he hoped the deal with Republican rebels represented a change of course for the president. He indicated that Democrats would support the bill.
"Democrats are united behind the need to work on a bipartisan basis to bring terrorists to justice and to do it in a manner consistent with our laws, our values and our national security," he said.
Carl Levin, the ranking Democrat on the senate armed services committee, said that he would introduce an amendment to change the bill's provision that prevents accused terrorists from going to court to challenge their imprisonment.
"I understand that the agreement does not address bipartisan concerns about the habeas corpus provisions in the bill. This issue will have to be addressed when the bill comes to the Senate floor," he said.