Reuters reports that President Bush “reached agreement” with John McCain on torture legislation today. Translation: Bush caved under pressure, without even having to be waterboarded.

Adam Entous and Vicki Allen write for Reuters,

Under bipartisan pressure after detainee abuse scandals, President George W. Bush reached agreement on Thursday with Sen. John McCain on legislation banning inhumane treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody.

With McCain and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner at his side, Bush said the agreement would help “make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention of torture, whether it be here at home or abroad.”

We would have been even clearer had the administration not dragged its feet for so long.

The White House had sought protections from prosecution for interrogators accused of violating the rule, but McCain rejected that, saying it would undermine his amendment.

The White House finally accepted language, which was similar to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, to allow civilian interrogators accused of violating the provision to defend themselves based on whether a reasonable person could have found they were following a lawful order about the treatment of prisoners.

Some of the pressure had come from the House of Representatives, which yesterday overwhelmingly endorsed McCain’s legislation. Eric Schmitt writes for the New York Times,

In an unusual bipartisan rebuke to the Bush administration, the House on Wednesday overwhelmingly endorsed Senator John McCain’s measure to bar cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners in American custody anywhere in the world.

Although the vote was nonbinding, it put the Republican-controlled House on record in support of Mr. McCain’s provision for the first time, at the very moment when the senator, a Republican, is at a crucial stage of tense negotiations with the White House, which strongly opposes his measure.

The vote also likely represents the lone opportunity that House members will have to express their sentiments on Mr. McCain’s legislation. The Senate approved the measure in October, 90 to 9, as part of a military spending bill. But until Wednesday, the House Republican leadership had sought to avoid a direct vote on the measure to avoid embarrassing the White House. …

…The House vote was 308 to 122, with 107 Republicans lining up along with almost every Democrat behind Representative John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who sponsored Mr. McCain’s language and who has become anathema to the administration on any legislative measure related to Iraq since his call last month to withdraw American troops from Iraq in six months.

Heh.