BARACK OBAMA’S nominee for attorney general has signalled a clean break with the Bush administration’s counter-terrorism policies, declaring that waterboarding – a form of controlled drowning used in CIA interrogations – is torture.
At his confirmation hearing before the Senate judiciary committee yesterday, Eric Holder rejected the outgoing administration’s claim that the president’s power in a national emergency overrode constitutional restrictions. “No one is above the law,” he said.
The CIA has subjected at least three terrorism suspects, included alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to waterboarding, but outgoing attorney general Michael Mukasey and his predecessor Alberto Gonzales have refused to say if they believe the practice is torture.
Mr Holder said that he and the president-elect were “disturbed” by some of the actions of the justice department under President George Bush and declared flatly: “Waterboarding is torture.”
Mr Holder faced persistent questioning from Republican senators over his role in former president Bill Clinton’s decision to pardon fugitive financier Marc Rich and 16 Puerto Rican separatists involved in the 1982 bombing of a Manhattan federal building.
Mr Holder said the decision to pardon the Puerto Ricans, who had already served 19 years in prison, was “reasonable”, pointing out that they had not been involved in any violent acts since their release.
He acknowledged he had erred in approving a pardon for Mr Rich, whose wife had been a contributor to Democratic campaigns.
“My conduct, my actions, in the Rich matter is a place where I made mistakes,” Mr Holder said.
Despite yesterday’s tough questions, Democrats are confident that Mr Holder will be confirmed as the first African-American attorney general in US history.
The Senate foreign relations committee yesterday voted by 16-1 to confirm Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, with Louisiana Republican David Vitter as the sole opposing vote.
In her farewell speech to the senate, Mrs Clinton said she had much to look back on with “great nostalgia and excitement” but said there were greater days ahead.
“Our challenge will be to come together, putting aside partisan differences,” she said. “I think this could be one of the golden eras of the history of the Senate. This could be the time when people look back and say: ‘You know, you can never count America out.’ ”
Earlier, on a visit to the state department, Mr Bush praised outgoing secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and defended his administration’s foreign policy record.
“In the Middle East, we stood with dissidents in young democracies,” he said.