WASHINGTON (ABP) — Although pledging not to tolerate torture of prisoners by American soldiers or law-enforcement agents, Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales also repeatedly refused Jan. 6 to renounce a controversial memo his office authored in 2002 supporting the legality of torture in some cases.
Gonzales, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, renounced the actions of soldiers such as those who perpetrated the scandal at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad.
“Torture and abuse will not be tolerated by this administration,” he told the committee, which is hearing his nomination by President Bush to be the country's top justice official. “I will ensure the Department of Justice aggressively pursues those responsible for such abhorrent actions.”
Gonzales currently is Bush's chief lawyer and previously served in a similar position when Bush was governor of Texas. Gonzales also served as a justice on the Texas Supreme Court.
However, Gonzales repeatedly sidestepped questions about his involvement in production of the Justice Department memo, which set forth a case for the legality of interrogation techniques that many international human-rights groups consider torture. He also refused to repudiate a portion of the memo that concluded the president has the right to authorize torture of terrorism suspects in unusual circumstances.
He endured tough questioning from the committee's Democrats and some Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
“When you start looking at torture statutes and you look at ways around the spirit of the law . . . you're losing the moral high ground,” Graham told Gonzales. “Once you start down this road, it is very hard to come back. So I do believe we have lost our way. And my challenge to you as a leader of this nation is to help us find our way, without giving up our obligation and right to fight our enemy.”
Graham, a lawyer and member of the Judge Advocate General corps of the Air Force Reserve, noted that many of the White House's positions on torture of terrorism suspects went against the advice of prominent career military officers.
At least two groups of religious leaders challenged senators and Gonzales to repudiate the torture memos and Gonzales' position on whether the standards of the Geneva Convention apply to war combatants seized in battles against terrorists.
In a Jan. 5 letter to Judiciary Committee members, a group of religious leaders said Gonzales' nomination to the nation's highest law-enforcement office presents weighty moral questions.
“[W]e as people of faith have a profound commitment to affirming the worth and dignity of all people, all of whom are children of God. We therefore have grave concerns about Mr. Gonzales' reported role in sanctioning torture,” the letter read. “We believe that no person, including the President of the United States, has the authority to authorize torture. We can think of nothing more antithetical to our basic moral values, or detrimental to our national role as a voice for human rights throughout the world.”
Among the Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Sikh leaders signing the letter were Baptists Welton Gaddy, pastor of Northminster Church in Monroe, La., and president of the Interfaith Alliance; and Stan Hastey, executive director of the Alliance of Baptists.
In addition, another group of religious leaders appealed to Gonzales' professed evangelical Christianity in asking him to repudiate the views on torture and due process reflected in the memos.
In a Jan. 4 letter to Gonzales, a group including several Baptists and evangelical leaders, as well as mainline Protestants and Jews, said, “As a self-professed evangelical Christian, you surely know that all people are created in the image of God. You see it as a moral imperative to treat each human being with reverence and dignity. We invite you to affirm with us that we are all made in the image of God — every human being.
“We invite you to acknowledge that no legal category created by mere mortals can revoke that status,” it continued. “You understand that torture — the deliberate effort to undermine human dignity — is a grave sin and affront to God…. We urge you to declare that any attempt to undermine international standards on torture, renditions, or habeas corpus is not only wrong but sinful.”
Among the signers of the letter were Baptist leaders Tony Campolo, Jimmy Allen and Glen Stassen.