U.S. attorney general rejects waterboarding probe

By James Vicini and Randall Mikkelsen

"Whatever was done as part of a CIA program at the time that it was done was the subject of a Department of Justice opinion ... and was found to be permissible under the law as it existed then," Mukasey told the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.

"That's not something that I think would be appropriate, and it's not something I would do," he said.

Those subjected to waterboarding were suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and senior al Qaeda leaders Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Hayden said.

"My own view, the view of my lawyers and the Department of Justice is, it is not certain that that technique would be lawful under the current statute," Hayden told the House Intelligence Committee.

Hayden said he went public with the acknowledgment because of the political debate over waterboarding, which critics say is a form of illegal torture.

"The question of waterboarding had become so much of the public discourse about the activities of the American intelligence community," Hayden said.

Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan and the Judiciary Committee chairman, asked Mukasey whether he was ready to start a criminal investigation into whether the confirmed use of waterboarding by U.S. agents was illegal.

Mukasey explained why he rejected any investigation.

The CIA said in December that it had destroyed videotapes depicting the interrogations of Zubaydah and Nashiri, prompting a Justice Department investigation.

(Editing by David Alexander, and Philip Barbara)

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