Law chief, Democrats face clash on waterboarding

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Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who is to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, told chairman Patrick Leahy in a letter on Tuesday that he had reviewed the CIA's current techniques for interrogating terrorism suspects and found them lawful.

Mukasey declined, however, to say whether he considered waterboarding to be illegal. Such a finding could fuel pressure to prosecute officials involved in CIA's interrogation program launched after the September 11 attacks.

A U.S. official confirmed last week that waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, was used in the past but had not been used in recent years.

Mukasey said that waterboarding was not part of the CIA's current program. "I do not believe that it is advisable to address difficult legal questions, about which responsible minds can and do differ, in the absence of concrete facts and circumstances," he told Leahy.

"There are some circumstances where current law would appear clearly to prohibit the use of waterboarding. Other circumstances would present a far closer question," he said.

Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, and other lawmakers repeatedly pressed Mukasey in his confirmation hearings last year and afterward to say whether he considered waterboarding an illegal form of torture, as do many human rights groups and other critics.

KEEP PRESSING

Leahy vowed to keep pressing Mukasey at Wednesday's hearing.

"This last-minute response from the attorney general echoes what other administration officials have said about the use of waterboarding," he said. "It does not, however, answer the critical questions we have been asking about its legality. Attorney General Mukasey knows that this will not end the matter and expects to be asked serious questions at the hearing."

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