President: U.S. 'Does Not Torture'

Oct 06, 09:59 AM

Current Headlines: SECURITY: Bush defends questioning and detainment of terrorism supsects in brief meeting at the Oval Office.

By Jennifer Loven

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON - President Bush defended his administration's methods of detaining and questioning terrorism suspects Friday, saying both are successful and lawful.

"When we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we're going to detain them, and you bet we're going to question them," he said during a hastily called Oval Office appearance. "The American people expect us to find out information, actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That's our job."

Bush volunteered his thoughts on a report on two secret 2005 memos that authorized extreme interrogation tactics against terror suspects. "This government does not torture people," Bush said.

Meanwhile, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D- Mich., demanded a copy of a third Justice Department memo justifying military interrogations of terror suspects held outside the United States.

In a letter to Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey, Levin wrote that two years ago he requested - and was denied - the March 14, 2003, legal opinion. Levin asked if Mukasey would agree to release the opinion if the Senate confirms him as attorney general, and cited what he described as a history of the Justice Department stonewalling Congress.

"Such failures and the repeated refusal of (the Department of Justice) to provide Congress with such documents has prevented the Congress from fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities to conduct oversight," Levin wrote.

The White House said Mukasey has not been cleared to read the classified documents Levin requested.

The two Justice Department legal opinions from 2005 were disclosed in Thursday's editions of The New York Times, which reported that the first opinion authorized the use of painful methods, such as head slaps, freezing temperatures and simulated drownings known as waterboarding, in combination.

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