DENVER—Colorado Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar said Wednesday he will vote against Michael Mukasey’s nomination as attorney general because of Mukasey’s refusal to call waterboarding torture.
Salazar said Mukasey told him that if he becomes attorney general, he didn’t know what his response would be to questions about the interrogation technique, which simulates drowning.
“That answer, in my view, is unacceptable,” Salazar said.
Waterboarding has been affirmed as torture by top military lawyers and leaders, Salazar said. The United States has prosecuted citizens of other nations as war criminals for using it on U.S. soldiers and court-martialed U.S. soldiers for doing it, he said.
“From my point of view, this is not a complex issue,” said Salazar, a former Colorado attorney general. “It is torture, it is illegal, it is inhumane.”
Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., will meet soon with Mukasey to discuss his concerns, Allard’s spokesman Steve Wymer said.
“He thinks highly of him” and has heard positive things about him, Wymer said.
Allard wants to hear Mukasey’s positions on immigration, additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Colorado and operations at the federal Supermax prison in Florence. Wymer said Allard hasn’t discussed the nominee’s stance on waterboarding.
Senate Democrats are divided over Mukasey’s confirmation. The Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday to send his nomination to the full Senate after Democrats Dianne Feinstein of California and Chuck Schumer of New York joined all the Republicans in supporting him.
Feinstein has said if Mukasey is defeated, President Bush would appoint an acting attorney general not subject to Senate confirmation.
Senate majority leader Harry Reid has said he would vote against confirmation.
Mukasey was still expected to easily win confirmation by the full Senate by the end of next week, but his refusal to condemn waterboarding will likely generate significant floor discussion.
Salazar said America’s standing in the world has suffered in the last six years and he wants to see the country restored “as a beacon of hope and optimism.”
Congress and the Bush administration have battled over treatment of detainees from the Iraq war and terrorism suspects. The administration favors an interpretation of the Geneva Conventions that would make it tougher to prosecute interrogators.
Salazar said he would support introduction of a bill reaffirming measures approved in 2005 and 2006 intended to ban torture by U.S. interrogators.
