Attorney general nominee faces criticism at confirmation hearing

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General-nominee Alberto Gonzales, under sometimes-scorching criticism from senators, pledged Thursday at his confirmation hearing to prosecute prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and to abide by international treaties on torture.\nDemocrats repeatedly criticized Bush administration policies on aggressive interrogation of terrorism suspects, and Republicans sometimes joined in, too, at the day-long hearing.\nGonzales defended his advice as President Bush's White House counsel that al Qaeda and other terror suspects are not entitled to Geneva Convention protections. But that wasn't the whole story, he said.\n"Torture and abuse will not be tolerated by this administration," Gonzales told Judiciary Committee senators. "I will ensure the Department of Justice aggressively pursues those responsible for such abhorrent actions."\nDespite Thursday's criticism, Gonzales is expected to win confirmation when Congress returns after Bush's inauguration. He would be the nation's first Hispanic attorney general.\nDemocrats said it was Gonzales' January 2002 memo as White House counsel that led to the stripping, mocking and threatening of suspects with dogs. He had argued in his memo that the war on terrorism "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."\nGonzales, as President Bush's White House counsel, was at the center of decisions about "the legality of detention and interrogation methods that have been seen as tantamount to torture," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.\nAdded Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.: The "legal positions that you have supported have been used by the administration, the military and the CIA to justify torture and Geneva Convention violations by military and civilian personnel."\nGonzales, wearing an American flag pin in his lapel, sat alone at the witness table, family members seated behind him in the crowded hearing room. Senators addressed him respectfully as "Judge" -- Gonzales is a former Texas Supreme Court justice -- but pressed him repeatedly about administration policies.\nHe refused to back away from his legal opinion to Bush that terrorists don't deserve Geneva Convention treatment if captured by Americans overseas.\n"My judgment was ... that it would not apply to al Qaeda -- they weren't a signatory to the convention," he said.\nHe denied that any of the memos he wrote or reviewed in the White House had anything to do with the overseas abuses.\n"Would you not concede that your decision and the decision of the president to call into question the definition of torture, the need to comply with the Geneva Convention at least opened up a permissive environment of conduct?" asked Richard Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's no. 2 Democrat.\nSaying he was sickened and outraged by photos of Abu Ghraib abuses, Gonzales described the U.S. troops in them as "people who were morally bankrupt having fun." Other abuses of foreign detainees probably were caused because "there wasn't adequate training, there wasn't adequate supervision."\n"I respectfully disagree that there was some kind of permissive environment," he said.\nGonzales' response to some questions Thursday seemed to contradict his description of the Geneva Convention in his January 2002 memo.\n"I consider the Geneva Convention neither obsolete or quaint," he said at the hearing, promising to ensure U.S. compliance "with all of its legal obligations in fighting the war on terror."\nGonzales declined to give a legal opinion on the prisoner abuse, suggesting he didn't want to prejudice a possible criminal case as the attorney general nominee. That led to a 10-minute lecture from Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., on Democrats' long-standing complaints about Bush nominees not directly answering their questions.\n"We're looking for candor, old buddy," Biden said. "I love you, but you're not very candid so far."\nRepublican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina joined in on some of the criticism, saying the administration "dramatically undermined the war effort" by "getting cute with the law."\n"I think you weaken yourself as a nation when you try to play cute and become more like your enemy instead of like who you want to be," he said.\nGonzales objected to Graham's characterizations, noting the beheadings of Americans by terrorists. "We are nothing like our enemies, Senator," Gonzales said.\n"But we're not like who we want to be and who we have been, and that's the point I'm trying to make," Graham retorted. "When you start looking at torture statutes and you look at ways around the spirit of the law, you're losing the moral high ground. ... I do believe that we've lost our way"