toledoblade.com --

TIMING is everything in politically wired Washington. And at a time when the White House is buffeted with criticism over the war in Iraq, Katrina, and rising gasoline prices, the GOP-controlled Senate felt emboldened to delivered a rare but necessary rebuke to the Bush Administration.

By an overwhelming vote the senators, including all from Ohio and Michigan, passed an amendment to a massive military spending bill that would set clear standards for the military's treatment of terrorism suspects in the wake of prison abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

The imposed restrictions are essential to clarify murky administration policies on what is and isn't acceptable when detaining, interrogating, and prosecuting anyone in U.S. military custody. Ironically, at the same time the Senate was voting 90-9 to establish rules that would prohibit the use of "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" of detainees, those at Guantanamo Bay were drawing desperate attention to themselves in hunger strikes.

Many of the roughly 500 foreign terrorism suspects held at the naval base in Cuba are refusing food to protest what they consider inhumane conditions and indefinite confinement without legal rights. Many have been held at the prison for more than three years. Only four have been charged with anything.

Amnesty International and a lawyer representing some of the detainees say the U.S. military is force-feeding nearly two dozen of the hunger strikers, who are allegedly shackled to their beds to keep them from removing feeding tubes.

Yet even against the backdrop of the prison protests the Bush Administration remains opposed to any attempt to codify policies against inhumane treatment of detainees. A White House spokesman said any measure limiting the authority or flexibility of the President to fight the war on terrorism is unacceptable.

But the mandate by the Senate to impose restrictions on the treatment of military detainees is a prominent one. It was spearheaded by Sen. John McCain, a possible presidential candidate in 2008 and himself a POW for more than five years in Vietnam.

The Arizona Republican said his tormentors had no regard for the Geneva Conventions, subjecting their prisoners to cruel, inhumane, degrading treatment and even death.

"But every one of us - every single one of us - knew and took great strength from the belief that we were different from our enemies, that we were better than them, that we, if the roles were reversed, would not disgrace ourselves by committing or countenancing such mistreatment of them."

The majority of senators swayed by Senator McCain's emotional argument believe the detainee provision would go a long way to repair the image of the U.S. after the prison scandals, and even former Secretary of State Colin Powell said it would "help deal with the terrible public diplomacy crisis created by Abu Ghraib."

Yet the White House still threatens to veto the military spending bill if the final version that lands on the President's desk contains the McCain measure. It's probably an empty threat considering the political flack Mr. Bush would receive if he held up a funding package with money for pay raises, benefits, equipment, and weapons for troops.

Besides, the timing is all wrong for the White House to demand unchecked wartime powers as the fight in Iraq drags on and on and the American toll climbs.

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