The US House of Representatives passed final legislation today to ban the torture of detainees and voted to advance the Pentagon $50 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The House passed two separate defense bills, one for funding and one for defense policies, that contained identical measures initially opposed by President George W. Bush requiring humane treatment of detainees in US custody.
But, in a concession to the White House, the bills curb the ability of inmates at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to challenge their detention in federal court.
Congress is pushing to complete its work for the year and the policy bill could go to the Senate for final passage late on Monday before being sent to Bush.
The Senate will take up the funding measure this week, with a fight expected over an unrelated measure added to the bill to allow oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge.
The bills also would let information gleaned by coercion to be used against Guantanamo inmates.
"What we do is leave that up to the court if it finds that there's coercion," said Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who helped worked out a compromise with the White House.
The funding bill provides $453.3 billion for defense, including $50 billion for the wars until Congress acts on an emergency war supplemental early next year that lawmakers said could be between $80 billion and $100 billion.
The torture ban represents a congressional rebuke of Bush, who resisted the measure pushed by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.
It was introduced in response to a scandal over the abuse of detainees by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, reports the CIA has run secret prisons abroad, and harsh interrogations in Guantanamo, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Human rights advocates were elated when Bush accepted McCain's amendment after opposing it for months on the grounds it would hamper intelligence-gathering in the U.S. war on terrorism.