Ashcroft grilled about US rules on torture

Several US senators demanded he release copies of memos obtained by newspapers that showed Ashcroft's Justice Department had offered justification to use torture of al Qaeda detainees if it were done in the name of national security. During three hours of testimony before the US Senate Judiciary Committee

-- a session marked by several sharp exchanges -- Ashcroft refused to provide copies of the memos, saying they were part of his private advice to the president. "We believe that to provide this kind of information would impair the ability of advice-giving in the executive branch," Ashcroft said.

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, said critical information was being withheld from the Congress. "These memos clearly do exist, and ... they appear to be an effort to redefine torture and narrow the prohibition against it by carving out a class of something called exceptional interrogation," she said.

"So these memos actually either reverse or substantially alter 30 years of interpretation by our body, as well as the executive, of the Geneva Conventions."

Ashcroft said it was not the Justice Department's policy to define torture.

But he did say the international rules governing treatment of detainees did not apply to groups like al Qaeda since only countries are signatories to the treaty.

Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts warned that abuses like those recently uncovered in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq occur when international laws regarding torture are not followed.