WASHINGTON - Attorney General-nominee Alberto Gonzales, under scorching criticism from senators, condemned torture as an interrogation tactic Thursday and promised to prosecute abusers of terror suspects. He also disclosed the White House was looking at trying to change the Geneva Conventions on prisoner rights.
Pressed at his confirmation hearing by senators from both parties, the White House counsel defended his advice to President Bush that the treaty's protections did not extend to al-Qaida and other suspected terrorists.
"Torture and abuse will not be tolerated by this administration," Gonzales told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I will ensure the Department of Justice aggressively pursues those responsible for such abhorrent actions."
Gonzales said that as attorney general, he would abide by the 1949 Geneva treaty. But he also said the White House was looking at the possibility of seeking revisions to the conventions.
"Now I'm not suggesting that the principles, the basic treatment of human beings, should be revisited," Gonzales said. "But there has been some very preliminary discussion: Is this something that we ought to look at?"
He said the discussions have not gone far. "It's not been a systematic project or effort to look at this question," Gonzales said. "But some people I deal with, the lawyers, indicate maybe this is something we should look at."
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Gonzales was referring to "some preliminary, staff-level discussions about recommendations by the 9/11 commission and the Schlesinger Task Force" that investigated prisoner abuses. "They recommended that the government should consider developing a new legal standard or new rules for detainees in the war on terrorism," McClellan said.
Sen. Charles Schumer later urged on Bush to consult Congress and he requested a congressional hearing. "My concern is not that these discussions are taking place, but that they are taking place in secret, behind closed doors, with no outside involvement," Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote the president.
Democrats criticized the Bush administration's policies on aggressive interrogation of terrorism suspects.
Gonzales is expected to be confirmed when Congress returns after Bush's inauguration on Jan. 20. He would be the nation's first Hispanic attorney general and replace John Ashcroft.
Democrats said it was Gonzales' January 2002 memo that led to the abuse of suspected terrorists. He had argued in his memo that the fight against terrorism "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."