It is demanding, in effect, that the courts build a back door to the back-door debate.
One described the regulation as "a lawyers' charter," because it creates so much uncertainty, according to an official who witnessed the closed-door debate.
Senators from both parties are beginning to do just that as they begin closed-door debate on the details of a plan first suggested by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.
Hovering over that discussion will be memories of the bruising, closed-door debate about shaping a strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan that many at the Pentagon and the White House said soured civilian-military relations.
No specific number of missions beyond the one major war was stated, although closed-door debate centered on two or three such contingencies' flaring up at the same time, officials said.
The vote came after the House went into a secret, hourlong session Thursday evening, the first since a closed-door debate in 1983 about financing for the anti-Marxist rebels of Nicaragua.
But after days of contentious discussion capped by a marathon nine-hour closed-door debate on Friday, Republicans came to a fateful decision: The full Senate would be allowed to vote on the bill, the majority leader, Dean G. Skelos, said Friday afternoon, and each member would be left to vote according to his or her conscience.
After several hours of closed-door debate in the Security Council today about a new American proposal to keep peacekeepers outside the reach of the International Criminal Court, diplomats said there was a fair chance that the divisive issue could be resolved soon.
But the closed-door debate became so polarized in recent days that responsibility for managing the forces portion of the review was given directly to Mr. Wolfowitz and Gen. Richard B. Myers, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in hopes that their high title and rank would calm the process and break the impasse.
The proposed bill is a response to the "closed doors" debate at Westminster on how to implement Lord Justice Leveson's recommendations.
On Friday, former president Bill Clinton joined the critics, telling House Democrats in a private speech in the U.S. Capitol, "that Nebraska thing is really hurting us". As talks go on behind closed doors, debate rages off Capitol Hill over whether the Senate's offer of extra Medicaid money to one state is unconstitutional, as its critics allege, and whether any court would intervene.
