Mukasey Says Waterboarding Not Being Used By CIA

Attorney General Michael Mukasey,  who will make his first appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday since being confirmed, said the CIA is not using the controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding on detainees, but he still refused to declare whether he thought waterboarding was torture.

In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that was delivered to the panel on Tuesday night, Mukasey said the CIA is not allowed to waterboard any detainees at this time.

After conducting a review of the CIA interrogation program, as he promised to do during his confirmation hearings, Mukasey said he found that a "limited set of methods is currently authorized for use in that program. I have been authorized to disclose publicly that waterboarding is not among those methods. Accordingly, waterboarding is not, and may be be, used in the program."

But Mukasey refused once again, as he did during his confirmation hearing when pressed by Democrats, to declare whether waterboarding, in his opinion, is torture under U.S. law.

"I understand that you and some other members of the Committee may feel that I should go further in my review, and answer questions concerning the legality of waterboarding under current law," Mukasey told Leahy. "I understand the strong interest in this question, but I do not think it would responsible for me. as Attorney General, to provide an answer. As I explained to the Committee during my confirmation process, as a general matter, I do not believe that it is advisable to address difficult legal questions, about which reasonable minds can and do differ, in the absence of concrete facts and circumstances."

Mukasey added that to take a public stance on waterboarding "could have the effect of articulating publicly - and to our adversaries - the limits and contours of generally worded laws that define the limits of a classified interrogation program. Indeed, I understand that a number of Senators articulated this very concern in the fall of 2006, in the course of defeating an amendment that would have expressly prohibited waterboarding."