Dubya and Republican Sen. John McCain reached a compromise on McCain's anti-torture bill -- one that allows CIA interrogators to use the defence that a reasonable person would believe they were acting under a legal order.

An excerpt from the NYT story:

The president said that the agreement would "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."

Mr. McCain said that "we've sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists."

He continued, "This will help us enormously in winning the war for the hearts and minds of people throughout the world in the war on terror."

Under the agreement, interrogators for the Central Intelligence Agency would be granted the right - already extended to members of the military - to defend themselves from charges of abuse by saying that a reasonable person would believe that they were obeying a legal order. The protection of C.I.A. interrogators had been a key objective of Vice President Dick Cheney.

But the agreement remained controversial. Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, quickly announced his opposition, saying he might try to block the accord unless clearer protections for interrogators were spelled out.

This was the second time in less than 24 hours that Congressional concerns about torture - and the damage to America's image wrought by allegations of secret C.I.A. detentions and interrogations - had overwhelmed the Bush administration's intent on keeping an array of tools to wage a difficult, high-stakes battle against terrorism.

Late Wednesday, in a rare bipartisan rebuke to the administration, the House of Representatives voted, 308 to 122, to endorse the McCain language barring cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners in American custody anywhere in the world.

I require more explanation about this. So what if a CIA interrogator were obeying a legal order if they were committing an illegal act?