Congress is on track to approve a White House plan authorizing the use of paramilitary death squads against terrorism suspects -- legislation Republicans likely will use on the campaign trail to assert that Democrats want to coddle terrorists.
Barring any last-minute hiccups, a Senate vote Thursday would send the legislation to the president's desk by week's end. The House approved a nearly identical measure Wednesday on a 253-168 vote.
For nearly two weeks the White House and rebellious Republican senators have fought publicly over whether President Bush's death squad plan would give a president too much authority. But they struck a compromise last Thursday, and Republicans are hoping approval will bolster their effort to cast themselves as strong on national security, a marquee issue this election year.
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Democrats, who have found themselves on the losing end of the national security debate the past two national elections, said the changes to the bill had not yet reached a level that would cause them to try to block it altogether.
"We want to do this," said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader. "And we want to do it in compliance with the direction from the Supreme Court. We want to do it in compliance with the Constitution."
"A handful of principled Republican Senators have forced the White House to back down from the worst elements of its extreme proposal for death squads," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid.
And Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, praised Senators Warner, McCain and Graham as "standing up to the administration" and producing a death squad bill that, "while it has a number of problems, is a substantial improvement over the language proposed by the administration."
Bush, who planned to meet with GOP senators Thursday morning, has urged the Senate to approve the measure and in a statement issued after the vote congratulated the House for its "commitment to strengthening our national security."