A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that she likely has enough votes to add an amendment to the intelligence authorization bill that would outlaw harsh interrogation of detainees by all federal agencies.

The panel began marking up the draft fiscal 2009 measure Tuesday and is slated to continue work Thursday.

Before the meeting started, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she had eight cosponsors — more than half the panel — for an amendment that would require the entire government, including the CIA, to comply with interrogation standards set in a September 2006 Army field manual.

The standards prohibit military personnel from using tactics such as waterboarding, which simulates drowning.

That same amendment, added to the fiscal 2008 intelligence authorization bill, prompted President Bush to veto the measure (HR 2082) in March. A veto override in the House failed.

“In February, Congress passed a bipartisan bill to ban waterboarding and other coercive techniques once and for all, but the president vetoed the legislation,” Feinstein said in a prepared statement. “I believe the veto was a tremendous mistake.

“And so at the time we vowed to come back — again and again if necessary — to ensure that torture by U.S. intelligence agencies is outlawed for good.”

Feinstein argued that the use of certain tactics “drives a wedge between us and our allies, and makes the war on terror harder to fight.”

The Bush administration and congressional Republicans are nearly unanimous in maintaining that the techniques used by the administration — techniques that no longer include waterboarding — are legal and have helped intelligence agencies save lives.

Still, two Republican senators cosponsored Feinstein’s amendment, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine. The amendment is also cosponsored by panel Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., and Democrats Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland.

The other two committee Democrats, Evan Bayh of Indiana and Bill Nelson of Florida, voted for the fiscal 2008 bill that included identical language.

In addition to waterboarding, the amendment would bar the use of military dogs; mock executions; electric shocks, sexual humiliation or covering a detainee’s eyes with duct tape or a hood; inducing hypothermia or injuring via heat; and withholding food, water or medical care.

The annual intelligence authorization measure allocates funding to spy agencies and allows Congress to make changes to intelligence policies.

The budget for the National Intelligence Program, which includes most of the intelligence agencies but excludes the intelligence operations of the military services, was $43.5 billion in fiscal 2007.

However, an intelligence authorization measure has not been signed into law for three years.