Associated Press | January 6, 2005

CAPITOL HILL -- Attorney-General designate Alberto Gonzales is promising that, if confirmed, he'll abide by international treaties on prisoner treatment. Asked by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter if he approves of torture, Gonzales replied, “absolutely not.”

Gonzales' critics charge memos he wrote led to the torture of terrorism detainees.

As the confirmation hearing got under way, the White House refused to provide Senate Democrats with additional documents on Gonzales' role in the decision to allow aggressive questioning of terrorism detainees.

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Harold Koh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about a January 2002 memo written by Attorney General-nominee Alberto Gonzales when he was White House counsel. He called it the quote, "most legally erroneous opinion I've ever read," end quote, and said it was a stain on U.S. law and on the nation's reputation.

Democrats and some Republicans on the committee said the memo led to the stripping, mocking and threatening of suspects with dogs. Gonzales argued in his memo that the war on terrorism makes the Geneva Convention's strict limits on questioning of enemy prisoners obsolete.

Gonzales condemned torture as an interrogation tactic and promised to prosecute abusers of terror suspects. He said the White House was looking at trying to change the Geneva Convention that protects prisoner rights.

He is expected to win confirmation.

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