by James Tweedie

THE US Senate voted on Tuesday to ban some forms of torture including waterboarding, rectal feeding, mock executions, hooding prisoners and sexual humiliation.

An amendment to a defence Bill was introduced by Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein and passed by 78 votes to 21.

It makes the US Army Field Manual on Interrogations the standard for all branches of the US government and grants the International Committee of the Red Cross access to detainees.

However, the army manual allows interrogation methods such as stress positions and sleep deprivation, which a group of doctors called “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” in a 2013 letter to the government.

Ms Feinstein said the amendment was needed in case the current presidential executive order banning torture was lifted by a future president.

“Whatever one may think of the CIA’s former detention and interrogation programme, we should all agree that there should be no turning back to the era of torture,” she said.

Torture methods “corrode our moral standing, and ultimately they undermine any counterterrorism policies they are intended to support,” she added.

Mr McCain claims to have been tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, though this is denied by his captors and those who treated his injuries.

“I know from personal experience that abuse of prisoners does not provide good, reliable intelligence,” he said.

“I firmly believe that all people, even captured enemies, are protected by basic human rights.

“Our enemies act without conscience. We must not.

“We must continue to insist that the methods we employ in this fight for peace and freedom must always, always, be as right and honourable as the goals and ideals we fight for.”

Since the beginning of the “war on terror” in 2001, US military forces and intelligence agencies have allegedly tortured both prisoners of war and civilian terrorism suspects at numerous extra–judicial prisons and “black sites,” including Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Bagram air base in Afghanistan.

The amended defence authorisation Bill must now be approved by the House of Representatives, the lower house of Congress.