The measure prohibits "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment." The McCain amendment also sets up "uniform standards" for interrogation.
"No person in the custody ... of the Department of Defense or under detention in a Department of Defense facility," the law reads, "shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation."
But there is a debate over the meaning of the provision. An administration official said Wednesday that nothing in the McCain amendment prohibited treating prisoners of war or unlawful combatants differently.
But a congressional aide said the meaning of the amendment was clear.
"They couldn't be further from the mark," the aide said. "The intent of Congress with regards to the McCain amendment was to have a single, uniform standard for all detainees."
The aide and other government officials who discussed the Army Field Manual for this article spoke on condition of anonymity because the document has not been released and the interrogation rules remain classified.
For now, lawmakers and their staffs are keen to avoid a public fight with the Pentagon. Senators still hope to persuade defense officials to alter the manual and create a single standard before it is officially released.
The overhaul of the Army Field Manual has been in the works for a while. The Army Intelligence Center at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz., created the first draft in May 2005. Pentagon officials began coordinating the draft with other Defense Department directives on interrogation.
But work on the manual and the other directives stalled when McCain proposed establishing the manual as the governmentwide standard on how detainees should be treated.
Vice President Dick Cheney pressured senators to drop McCain's measure, and the White House threatened last year to veto the defense authorization bill if the torture amendment was not dropped or modified. But McCain won the standoff, and the White House had to accept the limitation.
The dual standard on detainee treatment was not the only controversy surrounding the new field manual.
The finished manual and its classified addendum, or annex, was nearly complete two weeks ago, and military officials scheduled briefings with key senators. But State Department officials questioned the Pentagon's decision to withhold the classified annex from public release.
