Πηγή: channelnewsasia
By AFP
Dec 13 2011
WASHINGTON: US House and Senate negotiators unveiled a compromise military spending bill Monday that ties strings to aid to Pakistan, targets Iran's central bank, and sets high hurdles for closing Guantanamo Bay.
The legislation, which was expected to face votes in both chambers this week, requires that Al-Qaeda fighters who plot or carry out attacks on US targets be held in military, not civilian, custody, subject to a presidential waiver.
The measure exempts US citizens from that fate, but leaves it to the US Supreme Court or future presidents to decide whether US nationals who sign on with al-Qaeda or affiliated groups may be held indefinitely without trial.
The negotiators, working to blend rival House of Representatives and Senate versions of a sweeping annual $662 billion defense bill, expressed hopes of having modified the detainee rules enough to avert a White House veto threat.
President Barack Obama had warned he could reject the bill over the required military custody of some suspected extremists as well as provisions he charged would short-circuit civilian trials for alleged terrorists.
"I just can't imagine that the president would veto this bill" given the changes made in the House-Senate compromise, said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Democrat.
The lawmakers strengthened Obama's ability to waive parts of the measure and reaffirmed that the custody rules would not hamper ongoing criminal investigations by the FBI or other law enforcement organizations.
And they very slightly diluted the legislation's tough new sanctions on Iran, which aim to cut off Tehran's central bank from the global financial system in a bid to force the Islamic republic to freeze its suspect nuclear program.
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