Democrats Seek Interrogation Documents

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Republicans on Thursday lined up to defeat an attempt by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats to subpoena Justice Department memos on the use of torture in the interrogations of suspected terrorists.

But Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the committee, and other Republicans said the administration must be more forthcoming on policies that could have contributed to prisoner abuse in Iraq. Hatch said he had talked to White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez earlier in the day and been promised cooperation.

The Democratic subpoena attempt grew out of a hearing last week at which Attorney General John Ashcroft refused to give the committee copies of department memos on anti-torture laws that Democrats said could have laid the groundwork for the abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere in the war on terrorism.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., top Democrat on the panel and sponsor of the subpoena, said he applauded President Bush's pledge to get to the bottom of the abuse scandal, but ``you can't get to the bottom when the top stonewalls.'' Democrats were particularly critical of Ashcroft, a former Senate colleague. Sen Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said Ashcroft, in his testimony, ``essentially thumbed his nose at us.''Feinstein offered to change the subpoena language to give Ashcroft until June 24 to provide some 23 documents, or advance reasons why they should not be released, before the subpoena would go into effect. But the subpoena proposal was still defeated on a party-line vote, 10-9.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Prisoner-Abuse-Congress.html