WASHINGTON (AFP) — A split senate confirmed Michael Mukasey as United States attorney general despite criticism that he refused to say whether waterboarding -- an interrogation method widely considered as torture -- was legal.
Mukasey was confirmed late Thursday on a 53 to 40 vote in the Democrat-controlled senate, the lowest level of congressional support for any US attorney general since 1952, according to the Washington Post.
President George W. Bush's pick for the country's top law enforcement officer at first seemed ready to sail through confirmation, especially due to his strong support from Democratic Senator Charles Schumer from New York, Mukasey's home state.
But during confirmation hearings Mukasey refused to declare that waterboarding -- simulated drowning that critics say amounts to torture -- was torture and therefore illegal.
Waterboarding has been reportedly used by US interrogators after the September 11, 2001 attacks to wrest information from "war on terror" suspects.
Mukasey described waterboarding as "repugnant" and possibly "over the line," but did not take a stand on its legality.
Mukasey, 66, reportedly promised several senators privately that he would follow a ban on waterboarding if Congress explicitly forbade it. Congress currently prohibits "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment.
The White House refuses to say what the United States does or does not do to detainees, and said Mukasey has not had the classified briefings needed to be able to assess alleged US interrogation practices.
In an early Friday statement just after the confirmation vote, Bush thanked the senate for the confirmation, describing Mukasey in a statement as "a man of strong character and integrity" who "will be an outstanding attorney general."
"Now that judge Mukasey has been confirmed, I look forward to working with the Senate to fill the other senior leadership positions at the justice department so that America has the strongest, most capable national security team during this time of war," he said.
A retired judge deemed an expert on national security legal questions, Mukasey was nominated for attorney general after Alberto Gonzales -- an architect of contentious US "war on terror" legal tactics -- resigned in August after a scandal-tainted tenure.
"The Department of Justice has been categorized as dysfunctional and in disarray," said Republican Senator Arlen Specter, a harsh critic of Gonzales. "It is in urgent need of an attorney general."
Several senators who initially supported Mukasey, such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, were angered at his waffling and switched to oppose him.
"I was outraged by his evasive, hair-splitting approach to questions about the legality of waterboarding," Reid said, as he cast his vote during the four-hour debate that ended close to midnight Thursday.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy voted against Mukasey's confirmation, saying there was no question that waterboarding was illegal.
"This debate has boiled down to a discussion of principles that are as vital to American ideals and to the American soul," Leahy said in an impassioned speech.
"America needs to be certain of the bedrock principles in our laws and our values that no president and no American can be authorized to violate," he said.
Schumer and Dianne Feinstein of California, both on the Senate Judiciary Committee, salvaged Mukasey's nomination on Tuesday by deciding to back him despite their misgivings.
Six Democrats along with Joseph Lieberman, an independent, voted for the confirmation along with president Bush's Republicans.
Absent from the vote were Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Christopher Dodd, as well as Republican presidential hopeful John McCain.
Bush recently criticized lawmakers for demanding Mukasey express his legal opinion on the interrogation method, and said that questions about the interrogations were "unfair" because "he doesn't know whether we use that technique or not."
While Mukasey sidestepped questions about waterboarding during his recent testimony before lawmakers, he denounced a 2002 Justice Department memorandum that offered an extremely limited definition of torture and authorized, in the name of presidential war powers, some controversial techniques.
The document was made public in 2004, and the Bush administration was forced to rescind it in the face of a public outcry.
Mukasey served as a federal judge in New York for 19 years and is close to former New York mayor and now Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.
Among the high-profile cases he oversaw was the 1993 trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was sentenced to life in jail for plotting to blow up New York landmarks.
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